"The famous Blumenbach* has directed attention to the differences
presented by the form and the dimensions of human crania of different
races. This important work would have assisted us greatly, if the
face, a part essential for the determination of race, with more or less
accuracy, had not been wanting in our fossil cranium.

[footnote] *Decas Collectionis suae craniorum diversarum
gentium illustrata. Gottingae, 1790-1820.

"We are convinced that even if the skull had been complete, it would not
have been possible to pronounce, with certainty, upon a single
specimen; for individual variations are so numerous in the crania of
one and the same race, that one cannot, without laying oneself open to
large chances of error, draw any inference from a single fragment of a
cranium to the general form of the head to which it belonged.

"Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting the form of this
fossil skull, we may observe that, from the first, the elongated and
narrow form of the forehead attracted our attention.

"In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its narrowness, and the
form of the orbit, approximate it more nearly to the cranium of an
Ethiopian than to that of an European: the elongated form and the
produced occiput are also characters which we believe to be observable
in our fossil cranium; but to remove all doubt upon that subject I have
caused the contours of the cranium of an European and of an Ethiopian
to be drawn and the foreheads represented. Plate II., Figs. 1 and 2,
and, in the same plate, Figs. 3 and 4, will render the differences
easily distinguishable; and a single glance at the figures will be more
instructive than a long and wearisome description.