But if a series of sections of mammalian skulls, intermediate between
a Rodent and a Man (Fig. 29), be examined, it will be found that in the
higher crania the basicranial axis becomes shorter relatively to the
cerebral length; that the 'olfactory angle' and 'occipital angle' become
more obtuse; and that the 'cranio-facial angle' becomes more acute by
the bending down, as it were, of the facial axis upon the cranial axis.
At the same time, the roof of the cranium becomes more and more arched,
to allow of the increasing height of the cerebral hemispheres, which is
eminently characteristic of man, as well as of that backward extension,
beyond the cerebellum, which reaches its maximum in the South America
Monkeys. So that, at last, in the human skull (Fig. 30), the cerebral
length is between twice and thrice as great as the length of the
basicranial axis; the olfactory plane is 20 degrees or 30 degrees on the
'under' side of that axis; the occipital angle, instead of being
less than 90 degrees, is as much as 150 degrees or 160 degrees; the
cranio-facial angle may be 90 degrees or less, and the vertical height
of the skull may have a large proportion to its length.
It will be obvious, from an inspection of the diagrams, that the
basicranial axis is, in the ascending series of Mammalia, a relatively
fixed line, on which the bones of the sides and roof of the cranial
cavity, and of the face, may be said to revolve downwards and forwards
or backwards, according to their position. The arc described by any one
bone or plane, however, is not by any means always in proportion to the
arc described by another.
Now comes the important question, can we discern, between the lowest and
the highest forms of the human cranium anything answering, in however
slight a degree, to this revolution of the side and roof bones of the
skull upon the basicranial axis observed upon so great a scale in the
mammalian series? Numerous observations lead me to believe that we must
answer this question in the affirmative.
The diagrams in Figure 30 are reduced from very carefully made diagrams
of sections of four skulls, two round and orthognathous, two long and
prognathous, taken longitudinally and vertically, through the middle.
The sectional diagrams have then been superimposed, in such a manner,
that the basal axes of the skulls coincide by their anterior ends, and
in their direction. The deviations of the rest of the contours (which
represent the interior of the skulls only) show the differences of the
skulls from one another, when these axes are regarded as relatively
fixed lines.
The dark contours are those of an Australian and of a Negro skull: the
light contours are those of a Tartar skull, in the Museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons; and of a well developed round skull from a cemetery
in Constantinople, of uncertain race, in my own possession.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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