Indices.Number.
3·12-4·004
4·00-5·005
5·00-6·009
6·00-7·001
7·00-7·942
Total, 21

In this table the indices range between 3·12 and 7·94: nearly half are included between 5·00 and 6·00; the value of the median is 5·24, and the average of the numbers is 5·19. Accepting the value of the median as our average index for these natives, it may be compared with similar results for other races given in Topinard’s Anthropology:

American soldiers (10,876),7·49
Negroes (2020),4·37
Solomon Islanders (21),5·24

I will conclude my remarks on the length of the limbs by giving from the preceding “data” the limb measurements of a Solomon Island native of average height:

Height of body,64 in. -Index of height, and length of upper limb, 33·3.
Intermembral index, 68.- Length of upper limb,211⁄3„
Length of arm,111⁄3„ -Index of arm and fore-arm, 88.
Length of fore-arm,10 „
Length of lower limb311⁄3„ Index of height, and length of lower limb, 49.
Length of thigh171⁄3„ -Index of thigh and leg, 80.
Length of leg14 „

The form of the skull as indicated by the relation to each other of its length and breadth.—A hundred measurements, which I made of the heads of natives in this group,[95] in order to obtain their proportional breadth, taking the length as 100, gave indices varying between 69·2 and 86·2. The whole series, however, displays a tendency to grouping around different medians, and thus points to the important inference that we cannot accept one type of the skull as a distinctive character of the Solomon Islander. As shown in the subjoined [table], which gives the indices corrected to actual skull-measurements by subtracting two units as proposed by M. Broca, there would appear to be a marked preponderance of mesocephaly; but from my measurements being limited both in number and locality, the safest conclusion to draw will be the most general one, viz., that all types of skulls, brachycephalic, mesocephalic, and dolichocephalic, are to be found prevailing amongst the islands of the Solomon Group, the particular type being often constant in the same locality.[96] If my measurements had been five times as numerous, and had been spread equally over the group, I might somewhat narrow my conclusions; and in truth brachycephaly might have formed a more important factor in the series, if I had measured the heads of the same number of natives from the north coast of Malaita which I measured in the districts of St. Christoval and of Bougainville Straits. In the subjoined [table] I have accepted all indices below 75 as dolichocephalic, those between 75 and 80 as mesocephalic, and those above 80 as brachycephalic.

[95] The localities were—St. Christoval and the adjoining islands of Ugi and Santa Anna, Florida Islands, north coast of Malaita (Urasi and Uta Pass), Simbo or Eddystone Island, the islands of Bougainville Straits, including the west end of Choiseul.

[96] This conclusion is in accordance with the extensive observations of Miklouho-Maclay in New Guinea and in the Melanesian Islands. He found brachycephaly common in the New Hebrides, indices of 81, and even of 85, not being rare. The indices of several hundred measurements of New Guinea natives varied between 62 and 86. This eminent traveller therefore arrived at the conclusion that no classification of these natives can rest on the form of the skull. (“Nature,” xxvii., pp. 137, 185. Proc. Lin. Soc, N.S.W., vol. VI., p. 171.)

Cephalic indices which have been reduced to actual skull-measurements by the subtraction of two units.