protect it from the beat of the sun, by which the inhabitants of that province are so liable to suffer.
The skull of a native is thick and strong; the frontal process consists of compact bone of great thickness overhanging and protecting the eyes. The cranium often exhibits deficiencies in those organs which are regarded as indicative of the moral qualities.
My friend the late Dr. Henry Landor, in one of a series of letters to the Perth Inquirer, dated June 1842, writes as follows:—
"Whilst describing the form of the Australian skull, I shall point out the difference between it and those of some other races without giving a description of skulls in general, which would unnecessarily lengthen my letter.
"Of all the peculiarities in the form of the bony fabric, those of the skull are the most striking and distinguishing. It is in the head that we find the varieties most strongly characteristic of the different races. The characters of the countenance, and the shape of the features, depend chiefly on the conformation of the bones of the head. The Australian skull belongs to that variety called the prognathous, or narrow, elongated variety; yet it is not so striking an example of this variety as the negro skull. If the skull be held in the hand so that the observer looks upon the vertex, the first point he remarks is the extreme narrowness of the frontal bone, and a slight bulging where the parietal and occipital bones unite. He also sees distinctly through the zygomatic arches on both sides, which in the European skull is impossible, as the lateral portions of the frontal bone are more developed. The summit of the head rises in a longitudinal ridge in the direction of the sagittal suture, so that from the sagittal suture to that portion of the cranium where the diameter is greatest the head slopes like the roof of a house. The forehead is generally flat; the upper jaw rather prominent; the frontal sinuses large; the occipital bone is flat, and there is a remarkable receding of the bone from the posterior insertion of the occipito-frontalis muscle to the foramen-magnum.
"It is a peculiar character of the Australian skull to have a very singular depression at the junction of the nasal bones with the nasal processes of the frontal bone. This may be seen in an engraving in Dr. Pritchard's work. I have before described the teeth. I also mentioned in my last letter the remarkable junction of the temporal and parietal bones at the coronal suture, and consequently the complete separation of the sphenoid from the parietal, which in European skulls meet for the space of nearly half an inch. Professor Owen has observed this conformation in six out of seven skulls of young chimpanzees, and Professor Mayo has also noticed it in the skulls he has examined. But although this is a peculiarity found in this race alone, it is not constant. I have a skull in which the sphenoid touches the parietal on one side, whilst on the other they are separated a sixth of an inch ; and in the engraving before referred to the two bones are slightly separated, but by no means to the extent that they are in European skulls. The supra and infra orbital foramina are very large, and the orbits are broad, with the orbital ridge sharp and prominent. All the foramina for the transmission of the sensiferous nerves are large—the auditory particularly so; while the foramen, through which the carotid artery
