120 
DR. J. CLELAND ON THE VARIATIONS OF THE HUMAN SKULL. 
somewhat open suture was the point taken for measurement, in adult skulls the rough 
line was chosen which seems to form the limit between the two bones. In fact the 
writer supposed, in common with anatomists generally, that this line was the mark of 
the obliterated suture, but afterwards, suspecting the accuracy of this view, made a 
special examination and found that it was really the mark of attachment of the pharynx 
to the sphenoid hone, and that the position of the spheno-occipital suture was slightly 
further back, and disappeared without leaving any trace. 
Besides the positions of the points on the skull already mentioned, it was necessary 
that another should be registered to indicate the extent of the anterior cranial fossa. 
For this purpose the outer edge of the foramen opticum was chosen, the needle being 
rested on it as far up as possible. It is quite true that a point in the mesial section 
would have been somewhat preferable to this, especially as the position of the foramen 
opticum varies a little in height in its relation to the floor of the anterior cranial fossa, 
but the point chosen has suited sufficiently well, and was the best which could be got in 
the circumstances. 
The various points now indicated being marked on ruled paper and joined by means 
of straight lines, a diagram is produced on which it is easy to measure a great variety 
of lines and angles. The measurements on which the present communication is founded 
have been made from such diagrams, and the lines and angles measured are indicated 
by descriptive names. 
In making any series of craniographic observations, it is desirable not merely to select 
carefully the measurements to be registered, but to determine in what position the skulls 
shall be placed for the sake of comparing their outlines ; and in the present instance, as 
it was proposed to measure by vertical and horizontal distances, it was natural to attempt 
establishing a criterion by which a skull might be placed precisely as it had been 
during life when the person stood in the erect posture. On looking, however, at the 
numerous methods of placing the skull adopted by different observers, it is impossible 
not to see that we now touch on a most unsatisfactory part of the subject, and a fruitful 
source of error. This will appear more evidently in the sequel ; meanwhile it is suffi- 
cient to state that all the plans proposed are arbitrary, and if any one of them be true, 
it has at least not been proved to be so. In the Anatomical Museum of the Queen’s 
College, Galway, are placed the skulls of two criminals (skulls 49 and 50) with casts of 
the features taken immediately after death by Dr. Croker King, at that time the Pro- 
fessor of Anatomy and Physiology ; and on comparing the skulls with the casts, it is 
clearly noticeable that they are not placed in the position which they occupied in the 
erect posture, and when looking directly forwards during life, by following any of the 
plans which have been recommended, or by using the rule which has been adopted in 
the present inquiry. In all probability the skull does not possess any two points which 
in every instance lie in one vertical plane, or one in front of the other in a horizontal 
plane ; and it is quite likely that it will always remain impossible to determine from the 
characters of a skull what was its precise position in the erect posture of the body. But 
