the following distinctive and eminently significant peculiarities--viz. lowness of coronoid process, smallness of absolute size, and all but complete obsolescence of chin. Upon this I have already commented in _British Barrows_, pp. 706, note 1, 707, 716, _ibique citata_, comparing these lower jaws with the jaws of certain other confessedly “priscan” races, which differ from them in little but in being larger in size. It is, or should be, a commonplace among craniographers that, whilst the lower jaw is a more important bone for their purposes than any other single bone of the skeleton, and even than the pelvis itself, it is often more distinctive, if not more valuable, than at least the entire _calvaria_. Certainly this is the case with African skulls; for though it is possible enough, as was long ago pointed out by Professor Owen (see _Osteological Catalogue, Royal College of Surgeons of England_, 5385, p. 838, 1853, and for a contradictory statement Retzius, _Ethnol. Schriften_, 1864, p. 149), and as has recently been reaffirmed by Dr. Hamy in Paris, to find brachycephalic skulls among those of undoubted Negro races, and though, as I can aver from my knowledge of the collections in the Oxford University Museum, it is by no means always possible to distinguish either such brachycephalic Negro skulls, or certain other Negro skulls of the dolichocephalic type more usual amongst such skulls, from Bushman skulls of the respective proportions, both of which are represented in this latter series, it is within my knowledge always possible to do this if the skulls under comparison are in possession of the lower jaws belonging to them. The Negro’s lower jaw may or may not have the poorly-developed chin so constant in the lower jaws of the Bushman, and but rarely seen in the lower jaws of higher races; it may or may not have its anterior teeth sloping forwards in correlation with a prognathic upper jaw; it may or may not, I apprehend, though I have not met with such cases, be as a whole as small and feeble as the jaws of the Bushman have, with my knowledge, invariably been; but it never has shown, so far as I know, the low coronoid process, the shallow signoid notch, and the wide ramus so very commonly, or indeed all but invariably, found amongst not only the Bushman but the Eskimo race. The existence of this peculiarity not only in these two races so widely separated in space, though so nearly on a level in certain linguistic as well as certain other points of degradation, but also in so many of the lower jaws of the earliest representatives of our species, gives it a great morphological importance; and this morphological importance is not a little enhanced when we consider a second fact, drawn from a wholly alien line of contemplation, that, namely, which shows us that teleological adaptation to special needs, or necessities rather, as to dealing with food, has nothing to do with it. The fact of six