There are many skulls of Australians in various collections*
Blumenbaeh has figured two in his Decades. I have given
the representation of one which is in the museum of the
College of Surgeons, All the Australian skulls which I have
examined are very similar, and I apprehend that M. Lesson’s
description of the crania will nearly apply to them. In both
and all of them, th e upper jaw has a good deal of the
strongly marked Negro form; the alveolar process turns
somewhat forwards and gives a projecting muzzle, and the
head is compressed laterally, receiving like the skull of the
Negro, deep impressions fromjthe high insertion of the temporal
muscles on the upper portion of the parietal and temporal
bones. The most peculiar character in the Australian
skull is a very singular and deep depression at the juncture
of the nasal bones with the nasal process of the frontal bone.
This may be seen in the engraving. Ik is very conspicuous
in most if not all the Australian skulls which I have seen.
The same peculiarity is observable in -the crania of many
Oceanic tribes. Blumenbaeh observes, that the crania of a
New Hollander, which he has represented in his third Decade,
resembles in all its principal characteristics an Otaheitan
skull, which he , had ju st before described. The vertex of
the Australian is rather more compressed. The summit of
the head rises in a longitudinal ridge, in the direction of the
sagittal suture. In the Australian skull in Dr. Munro’s
museum, the forehead is somewhat flat, the upper jaw prominent.*
All the foramina except the infra orbital, remarkably
large. Some of the insular nations in the Indian and
Pacific oceans unite with the prognathous form of the skull,
somewhat of the broad faced type.f
* Dr. Dobson’s Inaugural Dissertation, de forma Ctaniorum gefttilitil. Edinb.
1808.
•f- The first attempt by any European artist to represent the countenance and
physical character of a nation of the Austral seas, was probably a portrait by the
old Dutch traveller Cornelius Le Bruyn, who in his Reizen over Moscovie inserted
the portrait of a Papua from Bange Eiland, on the coast of New Guinea.
In this, the shape of the head, as Blumenbaeh observes, resembles closely that of
Australian skulls. The countenance was observed to resemble the New Hollanders
who were brought to England by Governor Philips from New South
Wales.
S e c t io n IV.—Oval fa rm o f the S hull— Crania o f the Indo-
Atlantic or Iranian nations.
The skulls of the Indo-Atlantic nations differ from those
of otheT Ti®^|4n having all their parts moderately developed,
and they hold a middle place in : many respects between the
crania of the northern Asiatio and the Negro; ’ The figure
of the bony ease is more oval if we take a horizontal section
of the cerebral cavity. The shape of the sface approaches
more nearly to the same form; the cheek-bones make no
regular projection as in the Turanian skull, in which the
lateral prominence Of the zygoma gives the eectioa of the face
a lozenge-for kt.' rtv
Amorig European nations the Greeks 'have perhaps displayed
^ the greatest perfection lift.' the form ©f the head ;t in
other -Words, it has been supposed that the Greci&mraee in
the Configuration of the cranium which' belonged^ to that
people, have exhibited the characteristic traits'* of ithe Indo-
Atlantic nations- in the highest degree. This: ha® hien. inferred'
from the- remains of Grecian sculpture. It has been
thought by some-, that the statues 'Of Grecian gods and heroes
have ^gftpfbrfeed, not on the natural model*of the. Greeks, but
by an ideal Clmj^ptiOn-of the form calculated to. give the expression
of dignity and mental elevation. But Blumenbaeh
has described a Greek skull in his collection, which ■ agrees
perfectly with the finest works of Grecian art, and affords
good, reason for believing that the Grecian profiles as displayed
in ancient statuary, is, not exaggerated or founded on
any imaginary principles, but actually eopied from the heads
of Greek contemporaries with the artists. The skull5to which
Blumenbaeh? refers, is described- by him as o f a rounded or
oval form, the forehead highly and beautifully arched, the
superior maxillary bones under the aperture of the nostrils,
joined in a nearly^ perpendicular plane/ the cheek-bones
even, and turning moderately downwards*.”*
The idea here obviously suggests itself of connecting the
figure of the head, and consequently of the brain, among the
* Blumenbaeh Decad. Cran. sexta: also a memoir by the same writer in the
sixteenth volume of the Goettingen Commentaries.'