DR. J. CLELAND ON THE VARIATIONS OE THE HUMAN SKULL. 
127 
tent of orbital length. The Table shows an apparent exception to this statement in the 
Males. 
Females. 
Number 
measured. 
Orbital 
length. 
Foramino- 
optic line. 
Number 
measured. 
Orbital 
length. 
Foramino- 
optic line. 
German 
5 
1-93 
2-13 
3 
1-8 
2-03 
French 
6 
1-95 
2-24 
3 
1-83 
2-03 
Scotch 
5 
2 • 
2*22 
2 
1-95 
2-3 
Irish 
6 
2-05 
2-09 
3 
1-91 
1-93 
Greek 
5 
2’0 5 
2-18 
Kafir 
3 
2-05 
2-36 
1 
2 ° 
1-95 
Hindoo 
3 
2-05 
2*1 
Negro 
5 
2-07 
2-32 
2 
1-92 
2-12 
Australian ... 
2 
2-1 
2*2 
Kanaka 
1 
2-15 
2-3 
i 
2-05 
2-1 
case of the Scotch skulls ; which arises from one of the two female skulls having the 
exceptionally long foramino-optic line of 2-4, a mere individual aberrancy. Occurring, 
however, in a skull known beyond all possibility of question to be female, and in other 
respects having female characteristics, it affords a good illustration that the characters 
of sex, although more constant than those of nationality (Huschke*), are, like them, 
not all present in every instance. Examining the length of the foramino-optic line in 
different nations, it is found to be shortest in the Irish, Peruvian, and Hindoo, partly 
accounting for the shortness of base-line in those skulls, and to be longest in the Kafir 
and Negro skulls, which have the base-line long. Also, an inspection of those skulls 
in which the foramino-optic line amounts to or exceeds 2'4 shows that length of this 
line, like great orbital length, is a character liable to be found in skulls of low type. 
But it is likewise long in others which cannot be so classed. Thus the female Scotch 
skull 43, already alluded to, and the French skull 24, in both which the foramino-optic 
line measures 2'4, and the Kafir skull 45, in which it is 2'45, are not skulls of a low 
type; but the French skull 20, in which this line measures 2 ’45, is the worst propor- 
tioned of the six French males, and has a depression at the top of the coronal suture 
which has probably been the direct result of spheno-parietal synostosis. In the Ne- 
gro 61 and the Carib 88, the foramino-optic line measures 2-4; in Esquimaux 77 
and Kafir 68, it measures 2-5 ; in the Maori 2-55 ; while it reaches the unwonted 
length of 2 - 6 in the Spanish pirate, a skull which in various respects may be described 
as being as peculiar in character as the man to whom it belonged is said to have 
been savage. 
Angles at which the three divisions of the base lie one to another (General Table, 
columns 28, 29, 30). — The angles which the foramen magnum and the orbital length 
respectively form with the foramino-optic line may be termed the for amino-basilar and 
orbito-basilar angles. The number of degrees between the line of the foramen magnum 
and the line of orbital length on the upper side may be termed the cranial curve ; for 
if we look on the cranial cavity as the continuation of the cylinder of the spinal canal 
* ScFadel, Hirn, unci Seele, p. 2. 
