Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/99

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CHAP. V.
SKULL OF ENGIS, NEAR LIÉGE.
81

observations are based (fig. 2) exhibits the frontal, parietal, and occipital regions, as far as the middle of the occipital foramen, with the squamous and mastoid portions of the right temporal bone entire, or nearly so, while the left temporal bone is wanting. From the middle of the occipital foramen to the middle of the roof of each orbit, the base of the skull is destroyed, and the facial bones are entirely absent.

Fig. 2

Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man Fig. 2.png

Side view of the cast of part of a human skull found by Dr. Schmerling embedded amongst the remains of extinct mammalia in the cave of Engis, near Liége.

a Superciliary ridge and glabella. b Coronal suture.

c The apex of the lambdoidal suture. d The occipital protuberance.

'The extreme length of the skull is 7⋅7 inches, and as its extreme breadth is not more than 5⋅25, its form is decidedly dolichocephalic. At the same time its height (434 inches from the plane of the glabello-occipital line (a d) to the vertex) is good, and the forehead is well arched; so that while the horizontal circumference of the skull is about 2012 inches, the longitudinal arc from the nasal spine of