IN THE DIEFEEENT EACES OE MAN. 
509 
stotic deformation recorded, the internal capacity is not materially interfered with*. 
There are exceptional cases, as those in which most of the sutures are simultaneously 
ossified at a very early period of life, producing a limited growth of the brain in the 
whole mass, and constrained micro cephalismf. Artificial distortion of the skull also 
acts in a similar manner ; it arrests development in one direction, which is compensated 
for by increased growth in another. This mainly corresponds with the evidence of all 
the best observers, as Morton and Catlin, that individuals with the most frightfully 
compressed heads, speaking in ordinary terms, are in every respect equal in intellectual 
power to those whose heads have undergone no distortion. But this must not be allowed 
to affect the question, whether those with distorted crania, either from synostosis or by 
art, are not more prone to moral perversions, and more frequently the subjects of mental 
aberration than others^. 
In the Notes to the foliowing Tables it is intended to add and to collate observed 
weights of brains, where they have been ascertained, with the weights deduced, so as to 
compare, authenticate, and correct the computed results. 
As already said, the heaviest brain-weights are given first, the lightest next, and then 
the average, which is obtained by adding the special weights of all the examples of either 
sex together, and dividing by the number of individual specimens. The mean of the 
sexes is obtained by adding the average of the males and that of the females together, 
and dividing by two. The mean of the series is obtained by adding the particular weights 
of all the examples of both males and females together, and dividing by the number of 
specimens. This is a convenient mean, but must be taken subject to some variation, 
according to the relative proportion of the examples of the one sex to those of the other. 
In general, the males greatly exceed the females in number ; in some cases, as in the 
French, the Vedahs, the Cingalese, and the Hindoos, the sexes are almost equal ; in 
the Esquimaux of Greenland and in the Caribs, they are exactly so ; and in the Irish 
and Guanches there is a preponderance in the number of the skulls of women §. 
* On Synostotic Crania among Aboriginal Eaces of Man. J. Barnard Davis, 1865. Plates 9, 10, and 11. 
Transactions of the Dutch Society of Sciences of Haarlem. 
t Ibid. p. 21. + Ibid. p. 22. 
§ There are many other important queries suggested by these Tables, such as the exact origin of the skulls 
themselves, what particular portions of the different countries they are derived from, their authenticity, and 
other questions which cannot be introduced here. They are all more or less fully illustrated in an octavo volume 
just issued, entitled ‘Thesaurus Craniorum. Catalogue of the Skulls of the Various Eaces of Man in the Col- 
lection of Joseph Barnard Davis, M.D.’ London 1867. 
