Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/97

Rh modes by barbarous nations in the Old and New World, the skull being quite symmetrical, and showing no indication of counter-pressure at the occiput; whereas, according to Morton, in the Flat-heads of the Columbia, the frontal and parietal bones are always unsymmetrical. On the whole, Professor Schaaffhausen concluded that the individual to whom the Neanderthal skull belonged must have been distinguished by small cerebral development, and uncommon strength of corporeal frame.

When on my return to England I showed the cast of the cranium to Professor Huxley, he remarked at once that it was the most ape-like skull he had ever beheld. Mr. Busk, after giving a translation of Professor Schaaffhausen's memoir in the Natural History Review, added some valuable comments of his own on the characters in which this skull approached that of the gorilla and chimpanzee.

Professor Huxley afterwards studied the cast with the object of assisting me to give illustrations of it in this work, and in doing so discovered what had not previously been observed, that it was quite as abnormal in the shape of its occipital as in that of its frontal or superciliary region. Before citing his words on the subject, I will offer a few remarks on the Engis skull which the same anatomist has compared with that of the Neanderthal.

Among six or seven human skeletons, portions of which were collected by Dr. Schmerling from three or four caverns near Liége, embedded in the same matrix with the remains of the elephant, rhinoceros, bear, hyæna, and other extinct quadrupeds, the most perfect skull, as I have before stated, p. 65, was that of an adult individual found in the cavern of Engis.