The following paper was read by the author:
“Notes on Human Remains brought from Iceland by Captain Burton. By C. Carter Blake, Doct. Sci., M.A.I., Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy and Zoology at Westminster Hospital.
“The remains which Captain Burton has brought from Iceland are composed of fragmentary evidences of man, hog, ox, and horse.
“I. MAN.
“There are five races of man with whom any remains which may be found in Iceland may be compared with a view to their identification—the Norwegian, Skrælling or Esquimaux, Irish, Lappish, and Russian. I shall briefly pass over the chief characters of these races, and as the Norwegian is the race which forms the majority of the Icelandic population at the present time, I shall commence with it.
“The late Dr James Hunt, during his tour in Norway, collected an enormous amount of statistical facts with regard to the cranial measurements of the Norwegians, which were verbally communicated to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Birmingham.
“The publication of the memoir containing them was postponed at the wish of the author, and I am consequently only able to refer to my own rough notes, taken at a time when I examined the manuscript of my lamented friend. The general results seem to have been that the Norwegian skull, excluding from consideration all persons apparently of Lappish descent, was excessively short and round, that cases of brachistocephaly were frequent, and that cases even of hyperbrachistocephaly were to be found. The district investigated by Dr Hunt was chiefly to the north of Drontheim, and especially the neighbourhood of Hammerfest. The Swedish skull, on the other hand, appears to be dolichocephalic to a degree; while the researches of Dr Beddoe on the head forms of the Danes indicate a population whose cranial index oscillates from 85·9 to 75·3.
“The cranial characters of the Esquimaux, Irish, Lappish, and Russian races have been so often described, that I pass over the minute comparison, and proceed at once to the evidences on the table. These consist of the following specimens:
“1. Fragmentary calvaria of adult human individual. The contour of the skull has been brachycephalic, though its measurement is precluded by the fact that the left parietal, which alone exists, has been broken off from the frontal bone. The frontal region is bombate. Moderate superciliaries overhang a shallow supernasal notch. The nasal bones extend forwardly, and have not the slightest approach to the form presented by the Esquimaux, and in the ‘Turanian’ skulls described by Dr Pruner Bey. The superorbital foramina are converted into notches on both sides. A small piece of the alisphenoid bone exists, attached to the right frontal, indicating that there was a normal spheno-parietal suture. The dentitions and seriations in the coronal suture have been deep. The parietal bone of large size accords with the frontal in all essential characters of these sutures.
“The occipital bone is in a very fragmentary condition. It is not marked with any prominent ridges for the attachment of muscles, a fact which, coupled with the small development of the mastoid processes, leads the observer to consider that the present skull has belonged to a female.