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ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

and concluded that the balance of evidence was in favour of the theory that it originated from a premature union of the sagittal margins of the two parietal bones, and consequent compensatory growth of the skull in the antero-posterior direction, rather than from the development of the bi-parietal bone from a single median vertical centre. The author then directed attention to the importance of attending to the above proposition in ethnological inquiry, more especially with reference to the production, through its action, of various aberrant forms of skull in individuals of any given nationality, which may cause them to possess a shape of head quite different from that of the race to which they belong. He pointed out, moreover, that obliteration of the sutures to a greater or less extent exists in the crania of the Flathead Indians, which have been distorted by artificial means; his observations agreeing with those of Professor Daniel Wilson in this particular. He was of opinion that the pressure occasioned the tendency to premature union of the bones in these cases. The author did not think that persons possessing crania the form of which had been modified by premature synostosis necessarily exhibited any special tendencies to cerebral disease or deficiencies in their mental capacities.

Human Cranium from Amiens.-Mr. WILLIAM TURNER read a few notes, by Mr. Henry Duckworth, on the circumstances attending the discovery of a human skull at Amiens, and also a short paper of his own on the anatomical characters of the said cranium. The skull was produced and exhibited before the section. The cranium was found. by Mr. Henry Duckworth, F.G.S., in the summer of 1861, whilst on a visit to the quarries of St. Acheul. It was dug out of the deposit named by the workmen the "Découvert" Bed. Its depth from the surface was about six feet. The anatomical description by Mr. Turner comprised an account of the appearance of the bones, and of the form and general characters of the skull. One of the most interesting points connected with it being its remarkable resemblance to the much discussed "Engis" skull, of which it might almost have been considered to have been a reduced copy. There was nothing in the appearance of the skull, or in the circumstances of its discovery to lead to the supposition that it threw any light on the question of the antiquity of man.

Mr. R. A. GODWIN-AUSTEN thought that the discoveries at Amiens had no bearing on the antiquity of man, as the whole of the locality had been a burying-place for an enormous period of time. He had visited the locality where the skeleton was dis

covered, from which the famous jaw-bone, which had attracted so much attention, was taken; and he believed that the deposit there was nothing but an accumulation of drift from the chalk hills which overhung that particular spot.

The Neanderthal Skull. (C.) Professor WILLIAM KING gave reasons for believing it to belong to the Clydian period, and to be specifically distinct from man. He contended that the Neanderthal man was living in the concluding division of the glacial or Clydian period. He felt it necessary to advert to a question involved in the present subject, and on which a preconceived opinion, amounting to a prejudice, is pretty generally entertained. Some authors have no hesitation in admitting that the genius Homo has been represented by more species than one now living; but there is unquestionably prevailing a deep-rooted conviction that the psychical and speech endowments of Homo sapiens are generic; although there is nothing to warrant such a belief, and much to oppose it. He saw no reason to doubt that there have been species of the genus in existence, unpossessed of those gifts which so eminently place the existing human races, but in different degrees, above the highest anthropoid apes. Why may there not have been a Pliocene, or a Clydian species, possessed of no higher faculties than such as would enable it to erect a protecting shed, fashion a stone for special purposes, or store up food for winter; but like the gorilla, or chimpanzee, be devoid of speech, and equally as unconscious of the existence of a Godhead? Man's psychical endowments are visibly expressed in the prominent frontal and the elevated vertex of his cranium. But considering that the Neanderthal skull is eminently simial in its great characters, he felt himself constrained to believe that the thoughts and desires which once dwelt within it never soared beyond that of the brute. The Andamaner indisputably possesses the dimmest conception as to the existence of the Creator in the universe: his ideas on this subject, and on his own moral obligations place him very little above animals of marked sagacity, nevertheless they are such as to specifically identify him with Homo sapiens. Furthermore, the strictly human conformation of his braincase bears out the collocation. Psychical gifts of a lower grade than those characterising the Andamaner cannot be conceived to exist: they stand next to brute benightedness. Applying these arguments to the Neanderthal skull, and considering its close resemblance to that of the chimpanzee, and, moreover knowing that the simial peculiarities are unimprovable-incapable of moral and theositic conceptions-he saw no reason to believe otherwise than that similar darkness

characterised the beings whom he did not hesitate to call Homo Neanderthalensis.

The Anatomy of a Young Chimpanzee. By Dr. EMBLETON (D a).— On the 11th December, 1862, the body of a male chimpanzee, said to be about one year and a half or two years old, and which had died of bronchopneumonia, in a menagerie, at Newcastle, was purchased for the College of Medicine. It was scantily covered with black hair, except around the muzzle and arms, where the hair was silvery grey. It was fresh and in good condition, the trunk rather bulky, the chest large, the arms strong and muscular, the hands partly covered on the dorsum of the palm with black hair, which did not extend to the fingers, the palm or surface smooth, naked, and of a dusky flesh colour, the thumb small and short, measuring with its metacarpal bone, 2 in., the middle finger being 5 in. long, the legs comparatively short and weak, but fleshy to the heels, the feet rather more covered on the dorsum with hair than the hand, the toes and the soles resembling in smoothness, absence of hair and colour, the corresponding parts of the hands, the great toe freely detached from the others, and resembling a strong thumb, measured with its metatarsal, 2 in., the third toe, 31⁄2 in. The thumb appeared much shorter, slenderer, and weaker than the other fingers; the great toe thicker, stronger, and shorter than the other toes. The following dimensions of parts were carefully taken :-Length from vertex to the sole of the heel, 2 ft. 5 in.; length from top of sternum to tuber ischii, 1 ft. in.; length of leg from top of femur to sole, 11 in.; length of arm, from head of humerus to tip of middle digit,; 1 ft. 5 in.; length of hand and foot, each 5 in.; circumference of chest at broadest part, 1 ft. 4 in. The whole body weighed 16 lb. 6 oz. avoirdupois. Owing to its tender age, and the necessity for preserving it, the skeleton was not much studied, and time did not allow of dissection of much of the muscular system. It may be observed, however, that there exist thirteen pairs of ribs and, therefore, thirteen dorsal vertebræ, and in consequence the number of lumbar vertebræ is reduced to four. The diaphragm was well arched, and very strong; the psous parvus muscle was present, and attached as in a man. The skin, arranged by Mr. John Hancock, according to the exact dimensions and form of the animal, was deposited in the museum of the Natural History Society, and the skeleton, carefully prepared by Thomas Craster, in the collection of the College of Medicine. A dissection of the muscles and tendons of the palm of the hands is shown in sketch F. It was observed that the opponens pollicis muscle was

wanting; the others appear to be disposed as those of the human hand. Professor Huxley having maintained, in his Man's Place in Nature, that the hind limbs of the so-called quadrumane is not a hand, but in reality a foot, it was necessary to direct particular E attention to the muscles and tendons of that part. Sketch C shows the posterior region of the leg, which is flat, and rather broad, and the fleshy parts of the lateral muscles are continued down to the ankles; the gastrocnemii are the principal features hiding the presence of the soleus, and the absence of a plantaris. Sketch B, fig. 1, preEsents the anterior region and the dorsum of the foot. The peroneus 1 brevis, which is inserted into the fifth metatarsal, arises here above the peroneus longus, the tendon of which, passing behind the outer ancle, runs obliquely into the sole of the foot.

Next internal to the peronei lies the rather slender extensor longus digitorum, the four tendons of which pass to the four outer toes. Between this muscle and the edge of the tibia lie three muscles, one being a good deal overlapped by the other two. These two send their tendons to be inserted, the inner into the inner side and under part of the first cuneiform bone, the outer into the base of the metatarsal bone of the great toe. The third muscle, at first deeply placed, comes out, a little above the ankle, from beneath the other two, and its tendon, lying between that of the outer of the two and the tendon of the long extensor, runs to be inserted upon the dorsal surface of the base of the first phalanx of the great toe. On the dorsum of the foot we find the short extensor of the toes, a broader muscle, and extending further towards the inner side of the foot than in man, by means of considerable superadded slip, which diverges abruptly inwards from the other part of the muscle, sends its tendon along the metatarsal bone of the great toe parallel with the tendon of the last muscle, to be inserted into the base of the second or terminal phalanx of that toe.

Every toe, then, in the chimpanzee, has at least a long and a short extensor for its phalanges, whilst the great toe has an extensor for its metatarsal, another for its cuneiform bone. Thus it may be said that there are four muscles of the great toe to ensure free and varied mobility in the sense of extension; the fifth toe has, as in man, in addition to its phalangeal extensions, the peroneus brevis attached to its metatarsal. Of the four extensions of the great toe, the two innermost appear to represent the tibialis anticus of human anatomy, divided to secure variety of motions in the root of the great toe; the next would quite answer to the extensor proprius pollicis only; it is inserted

into the base of the first instead of the terminal phalanx; the fourth or short extensor is a new foot muscle, and unrepresented in either the hand or foot of man. Thus, in the peroneal region, and in that of the extensor, we find all the corresponding human muscles represented; moreover, there are certain modifications of arrangement, and a new muscle for the first digit introduced, to give more freedom and variety of movement in extension to that member. This muscle is a foot muscle, not a hand one; the divided tibialis anticus is rather a foot than a hand arrangement. There are no hand muscles introduced, though the great toe has four, and the thumb three extensors. There is here a great toe, more moveable in extension than any thumb. We now turn to the sole of the foot. The three superficial muscles, the abductor pollicis, the flexor brevis digit., and the abductor minimi and digitorum are, as in the human sole, the first to come into view. On detaching the two last from the heel bone, we find, towards the outer border of the foot, a flexor brevis minimi digiti, and in the middle region the lumbricales and the tendons of the long and short flexors of the toes, with a small muscle accessory to the lumbricales arising from the long flexor tendon before its division. No muscular accessories arising from the os calcis and attached to the long flexor tendon were observed. At the outer border of the foot, when we abduct strongly the great toe, which can thus be brought to nearly a right angle with the rest of the foot, we see, after a little dissection, the abductor pollicis as a short doubly reuniform muscle, extending from the heel to the base of the first phalanx of the great toe, occupying considerable space, and close to it lie the two halves of the flexor brevis pollicis, separated by the tendon of the flexor longus pollicis. Lastly, between the great toe and the second is clearly to be observed the abductor pollicis. All these muscles of the great toe are highly developed and of great power; and, if they all act together, will very forcibly pull the great toe towards the middle of the sole of the foot; if the flexors of the other toes are made to act at the same time, the result will be a strong, rather oblique opposition of the great toe to the other four toes; and if an object like the branch of a tree be placed in the sole, it will be grasped with much firmness. There remains, however, to be noticed an interesting arrangement by which that action will be enforced and made more secure. It is this: the muscle called flexor longus pollicis is largely developed in the leg, extending down to the inner ankle, and ends in a strong tendon, which runs into the sole of the foot close to the os calcis, and apart, as in man, from the other tendons, opposite

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