stituent bones, and these differences are not accidental and fluctuating,
but persistent. Thus, tbe massive, broad, and outward-shelving
malar bones of the Polar man are unlike those of any other race.
So, the superior maxillæ of the Coast African is so unlike that of
any other people, as to have become a standard of comparison for
inferiority—a standard expressed by the word prognathous. Differences
in the nasal bones, in the size ot the frontal sinuses, in the
prominence of the occiput, in the angle at which the parietal bones
join each other, in the form and arrangement of the teeth, in the
relation of head to face, in the relative situations of the great occipital
foramen and the bony meatus, in the form of the skull, and the
configuration of its base ; and, as the result of all these, in the physiognomy
of the facial bones, exist, as I shall presently endeavor to
show, and are perpetuated from one generation to another as constant
and unaltered features.
Cranial differentiae, however slight, derive additional importance
from their relation to the physiognomical character of the skull as
a whole, and daily observation shows this character to be more important
than is generally considered. The labors of Porta, Camper,
Lebrun, Lavater, Bichat, Moreau de la Sarthe, and others, have given
us the scientific elements of a physiognomy or physiology of the face,
as those of Blumenbaeh and Morton have established a physiology
of the cranium. Between the muscular and integumentary investi-
titure of the face and head on the one hand, and the bony structure
of these parts on the other, there is a decided adaptation. "Whether
the soft parts determine the form of the osseous frame-work, or the
latter that of the former, does not so much concern us, at present, as
the fact of adaptation. That this adaptation exists, there can scarcely
be a doubt. “ Tout dans la nature,” beautifully and truthfully writes
De la Sarthe, “ est rapport et harmonie ; chaque apparence externe
est le signe d’une propriété : chaque point de la superficie d’un corps
annonce l’état de sa profondeur et de sa structure.”75 In.virtue of
this harmony, we find the physiognomy of the skull expressing the
true value of its osteologic peculiarities, even when these are so
slight as to appear in themselves trivial and insignificant. Soemmering,
not perceiving the import of this relation, tells us that he could
find no well-marked differences between the G-erman, Swiss, French,
Swedish and Russian skulls in his collection, leaving .it to be inferred
that none such existed.76 At a later period, and from the same
75 Neuvième Etude sur Lavater.
76 Lawrence informs us that his friend, Mr. Geo. Lewis, in a tour through France and
Germany, observed that the lower and anterior part of the cranium is larger in the French,
the upper and anterior in the Germans ; and that the upper and posterior region is larger
cause, Cuvier,'while conducting his palaeontological researches, more
than once fell into an analogous error.
From the foregoing remarks, it will be seen that it is a matter of
much importance to be able to discriminate between typical or race-
forms of crania, and those modifications of shape produced, to a
certam extent, by age, sex, development, intermixture of races, artificial
deformations, &c. Unless these distinctions be observed and
due allowance made for them, it will be utterly impossible to determine
the number and character of the primitive ty p e s -a n attempt
already almost hopelessly beyond our power, in consequence of the
ceaseless migrations and affiliations which have been going on
amongst the races of men since the remotest antiquity. The modifications
of cranial form, from these various causes, are so many
associated elements, which must be individually isolated before we
can determine the true value of each. In proportion as this isolation
is-complete, so will our results approximate the truth.
It is very well known that the skulls of the lower animals undergo
certain changes In conformation as they advance in age. In a limited
degree, this appears to be true of man also ; though the extent of
these changes, and the period at which they are most noticeable !_
whether during mtra-uterine life, or subsequent to birth—are points
not yet definitively settled. However, from the observations of
Soemmering, Camper, Blumenbaeh, Loder and Ludwig, we learn
that in very young children, even in infants at the moment of birth,
the race-lmeaments are generally but positively expressed. Blumen-
bach, m his^ Decades, figures the head of a Jewess, aged five years,
a Burat child, one and a half years, and a newly-born negro ; in
each of these the ethnic characters of the race to which it belongs
are distinctly seen. The Mortonian collection furnishes a number
of examples confirmatory of this interesting and remarkable fact.
Occasionally the tardy development of certain parts may give rise
to apparent modifications, as indicated in the following passage from
Dr. Gosse’s highly interesting essay upon the artificial deformations
of the skull. “ H n’est pas même rare, en Europe, de'voir le front
paraîfre plus saillant chez un grand nombre d’enfants, en raison du
faible développement de la face. Toutefois, jusqu’à l’âge de dix à
douze ans, il existe en général une prédominance de la region occipitale
qui paraît se développer d’autant plus que l’intelligence est plus
exercée. Ce n’est souvent que vers cette époque de là vie que les os
in the former than in the latter. (Op. cit., p. 239.)—Count Gobineau, in his work already
alluded to, speaks of a certain enlargement on each side of the lower lip, which is found
among the English and Germans.