AN EXPERIMENT IN RECONSTRUCTION 375 
cavity is small, as in the chimpanzee, then the muscles 
may occupy the whole lateral aspect of the skull, and the 
temporal lines may actually meet along the middle line 
of the roof of the skull. As the brain cavity enlarges, a 
larger space becomes available than the temporal muscles 
need, and therefore the temporal lines are placed at a 
distance from the middle line. If the brain cavity 
becomes very large, these lines are widely separated from 
the middle line. What, then, was the condition in the 
Piltdown skull ? In Dr Smith Woodward's reconstruction 
the temporal lines reach within 40 mm. of the middle 
line ; in the modern English skull with a capacity of 1425 
c.c, shown in fig. 115, p. 334, the lines reach within 50 
mm. of the middle line. With a capacity of only 1070, 
as estimated by Dr Smith Woodward, and with such a 
long and projecting jaw as he found with the skull, we 
expect the temporal muscles to be large and the temporal 
lines to ascend further on the sides of the skull than they 
actually do — if the skull were a small one. We have seen 
that the middle line cannot be as in Dr Smith Woodward's 
reconstruction ; when the parts are placed so that the 
sutures are symmetrical we find that the temporal lines 
are not 40 mm. but 52 mm. from the middle line. In 
the Dartford skull, with a capacity of 1750 c.c. and with 
a lower jaw which we may presume was not much larger 
than in us, the distance is only 70 mm. All those facts 
are in harmony with the other evidence I have brought 
forward, namely, that we are dealing with a skull with a 
fairly large brain capacity. 
In this chapter we have surveyed the Piltdown skull 
from two aspects — from behind and above. The result 
of that survey, and the comparison of the fragments of 
the skull with corresponding parts of modern skulls, 
convince students of anatomy that in general conforma- 
tion, in actual dimensions, and in brain capacity the head 
of the Piltdown race was remarkably similar to that of 
modern races. 
