156 
DE. J. CLELAND ON THE VAKIATIONS OF THE HUMAN SKULL. 
not be considered as a sufficiently trustworthy exposition of the national averages of this 
angle ; still it is curious to note that, such as they are, these results make the angle 
smallest in the Greek, Irish, and German, decidedly larger in the Scotch, and still larger 
in the French, which agrees well with the appearance of the features in those nations. 
Thus it will he generally admitted that prominence of face is a well-marked national 
peculiarity in the French ; and probably no one will deny that the reverse condition is 
eminently characteristic of the Irish. There is enough in these results to lead to the 
anticipation that in an extended series of observations the orbito-nasal angle will furnish 
a marked character of distinction between the different European nations. But enlarge- 
ment of this angle is certainly not the only source of the concrete phenomenon called 
prognathism. Any one handling the Kafir skull 68, the Esquimaux 77, or the Carib 88, 
would probably pronounce them decidedly prognathous ; yet their orbito-nasal angles 
are respectively 88°, 84°, and 85°. Another example is furnished by the diagrams of the 
Negro skulls 61 and 63, which are as similar as possible in the amount of their pro- 
gnathism, as well as in many other particulars ; and yet the one has an orbito-nasal angle 
of 102°, and the other an angle of only 89° ; but the sum of the orbito-frontal and orbito- 
nasal angles is in the one skull 177°, and in the other 176°, giving a similarity of ex- 
ternal appearance notwithstanding great difference of structure. 
Length of face from fronto-nasal suture to nasal spine (column 66). — The distance 
from the fronto-nasal suture to the nasal spine is not subject to much variation, the dif- 
ferences in length of face from the root of the nose to the mouth being chiefly dependent 
on variations in size of the incisor teeth and the depth of their sockets, while the 
amount allotted to nose, and the amount to upper lip, depend greatly on the extent to 
which the alar cartilages descend below the level of the nasal spine. It does not, 
however, do so altogether ; and in the shortness of the distance from fronto-nasal suture 
to nasal spine (1*75) in the skull of Geokge Buchanan may be seen an indication of the 
shortness of his nose. This distance does not extend beyond T65 in any of the chil- 
dren’s skulls examined; it would appear, therefore, that the growth of the upper jaw 
in length is completed at a later period, which agrees well with the evidence afforded 
by the orbito-nasal angle that the growth of the jaw forwards is not completed till the 
full development of the frontal sinus. This distance is shorter in the female than in the 
male; its shortness in the Australian skull 73 (1*65) is probably an exceptional idiosyn- 
crasy, for in five figures of Australian skulls by Lucae it varies from 1*85 to 2‘05. 
Naso-basilar angle and naso-basilar line (columns 64 & 65). — It is only necessary under 
this head to record, for the sake of saving other observers needless trouble, that the 
distance from the spheno-occipital suture to the nasal spine, and the size of the angle 
between a line joining these points and the line along the under surface of the basilar 
process of the occipital bone, have been carefully measured in the series of skulls ex- 
amined in the hope that they might throw some light on the causes of prognathism. 
But the size of the angle is dependent in great measure on the steepness or levelness of 
the base of the skull as well as on the form of the face; and the length of the line is 
