emann assigns,
as the cranial contents in the Negro, 40, 38, and 35 ounces. The cranium
holds rather more than 36 ounces of water, which corresponds to a
capacity of 1033.24 cubic centimetres. Huschke estimates the cranial
contents of a Negress at 1127 cubic centimetres; of an old Negro at 1146
cubic centimetres. The capacity of the Malay skulls, estimated by water,
equalled 36, 33 ounces, whilst in the diminutive Hindoos it falls to as
little as 27 ounces."
After comparing the Neanderthal cranium with many others, ancient and
modern, Professor Schaaffhausen concludes thus:--
"But the human bones and cranium from the Neanderthal exceed all the
rest in those peculiarities of conformation which lead to the conclusion
of their belonging to a barbarous and savage race. Whether the cavern in
which they were found, unaccompanied with any trace of human art, were
the place of their interment, or whether, like the bones of extinct
animals elsewhere, they had been washed into it, they may still be
regarded as the most ancient memorial of the early inhabitants of
Europe."
Mr. Busk, the translator of Dr. Schaaffhausen's paper, has enabled us
to form a very vivid conception of the degraded character of the
Neanderthal skull, by placing side by side with its outline, that of the
skull of a Chimpanzee, drawn to the same absolute size. [10]
Some time after the publication of the translation of Professor
Schaaffhausen's Memoir, I was led to study the cast of the Neanderthal
cranium with more attention than I had previously bestowed upon it,
in consequence of wishing to supply Sir Charles Lyell with a diagram,
exhibiting the special peculiarities of this skull, as compared with
other human skulls. In order to do this it was necessary to identify,
with precision, those points in the skulls compared which corresponded
anatomically. Of these points, the glabella was obvious enough; but when
I had distinguished another, defined by the occipital protuberance
and superior semicircular line, and had placed the outline of the
Neanderthal skull against that of the Engis skull, in such a position
that the glabella and occipital protuberance of both were intersected by
the same straight line, the difference was so vast and the flattening of
the Neanderthal skull so prodigious (compare Figs. 23 and 25, A.), that
I at first imagined I must have fallen into some error. And I was
the more inclined to suspect this, as, in ordinary human skulls,
|