of nature. A small additional amount of
flattening and lengthening, with a corresponding increase of the
supraciliary ridge, would convert the Australian brain case into a form
identical with that of the aberrant fossil.

And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to the rank which
they occupy among, or beyond, these existing varieties of cranial
conformation. In the first place, I must remark, that, as Professor
Schmerling well observed ('supra', p. 300) in commenting upon the Engis
skull, the formation of a safe judgment upon the question is greatly
hindered by the absence of the jaws from both the crania, so that there
is no means of deciding with certainty, whether they were more or less
prognathous than the lower existing races of mankind. And yet, as we
have seen, it is more in this respect than any other, that human skulls
vary, towards and from, the brutal type--the brain case of an average
dolichocephalic European differing far less from that of a Negro,
for example, than his jaws do. In the absence of the jaws, then, any
judgment on the relations of the fossil skulls to recent Races must be
accepted with a certain reservation.

But taking the evidence as it stands, and turning first to the Engis
skull, I confess I can find no character in the remains of that cranium
which, if it were a recent skull, would give any trustworthy clue as
to the Race to which it might appertain. Its contours and measurements
agree very well with those of some Australian skulls which I have
examined--and especially has it a tendency towards that occipital
flattening, to the great extent of which, in some Australian skulls, I
have alluded. But all Australian skulls do not present this flattening,
and the supraciliary ridge of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of
the typical Australians.

On the other hand, its measurements agree equally well with those of
some European skulls. And assuredly, there is no mark of degradation
about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, a fair average human
skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have
contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.

The case of the Neanderthal skull is very different. Under whatever
aspect we view this cranium, whether we regard its vertical depression,
the enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges, its sloped occiput,
or its long and straight squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like
characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of huma