world an elongated skull, and in other quarters a short skull prevails, yet
there is great diversity of shape even within the limits of the same race,
as with the aborigines of America and South Australia--the latter a race
"probably as pure and homogeneous in blood, customs, and language as any in
existence"--and even with the inhabitants of so confined an area as the
Sandwich Islands. (2. With respect to the "Cranial forms of the American
aborigines," see Dr. Aitken Meigs in 'Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci.' Philadelphia,
May 1868. On the Australians, see Huxley, in Lyell's 'Antiquity of Man,'
1863, p. 87. On the Sandwich Islanders, Prof. J. Wyman, 'Observations on
Crania,' Boston, 1868, p. 18.) An eminent dentist assures me that there is
nearly as much diversity in the teeth as in the features. The chief
arteries so frequently run in abnormal courses, that it has been found
useful for surgical purposes to calculate from 1040 corpses how often each
course prevails. (3. 'Anatomy of the Arteries,' by R. Quain. Preface,
vol. i. 1844.) The muscles are eminently variable: thus those of the foot
were found by Prof. Turner (4. 'Transactions of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh,' vol. xxiv. pp. 175, 189.) not to be strictly alike in any two
out of fifty bodies; and in some the deviations were considerable. He
adds, that the power of performing the appropriate movements must have been
modified in accordance with the several deviations. Mr. J. Wood has
recorded (5. 'Proceedings Royal Society,' 1867, p. 544; also 1868, pp.
483, 524. There is a previous paper, 1866, p. 229.) the occurrence of 295
muscular variations in thirty-six subjects, and in another set of the same
number no less than 558 variations, those occurring on both sides of the
body being only reckoned as one. In the last set, not one body out of the
thirty-six was "found totally wanting in departures from the standard
descriptions of the muscular system given in anatomical text books." A
single body presented the extraordinary number of twenty-five distinct
abnormalities. The same muscle sometimes varies in many ways: thus Prof.
Macalister describes (6. 'Proc. R. Irish Academy,' vol. x. 1868, p. 141.)