Skull

“ His body has long since mouldered away and mingled with the parent earth,—this skull alone remains; and yet the time will surely come, and cannot be far distant, when "the bones shall come together—bone to his bone"; when the sinews and the flesh shall come upon them, the skin cover them, and the breath entering the body the dead shall live! ”

“ In looking at these very venerable ancestors it is the face that naturally attracts the greater attention. There is some expression in a skull, an expression of melancholy and surprise, with a suggestion of ferocity. Conspicuous, especially, is the look of wonder, the open mouth, the staring teeth, the solemn, hollow eye sockets. ”

“ I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.” ”

“ The skull theory, as is well known, has for a long time been a very favourite theme, not only with prominent naturalists, but also with talented amateurs. Undoubtedly the skull, viewed as the bony capsule which encloses our most important organ of sense, our brain, has a special claim to morphological importance; for the general conformation of the skull corresponds on the whole to the development of the brain, and its inner surface gives an approximate idea of the outer surface of the brain. In this correspondence lies the only sound kernel of the sickly, overgrown fancies of phrenology. ”

“ Perhaps some of my readers may not be aware that the bone of the skull consists of an outer and inner plate, with a variable arrangement of cells between them. In many animals, such, for example, as man, where the jaws are comparatively feeble, and the teeth small and light, the size of the skull is practically that of the brain, to which it affords a covering. The same structure may be observed in the skull of the common sparrow, where, as in man, the two bony plates are set almost in contact. ”

“ If we contemplate the interior of a skull, we shall at once perceive that the inner table has every where penetrated as far as it could into the recesses which open on the surface of the brain. Every convolution has hollowed out its corresponding mould in the vitreous table ”

“ A human skull, with the brain scooped out, but the red scalp, and part of the hair, and the flesh of the face adhering to it, while the lower jaw had been torn away, was hung round this horrible-looking image's neck. ”

“ We must learn something more about the bones of each part.
4. The Skull.—The skull is somewhat like a shell. It is made of a number of bones joined together in such a way as to leave a hollow place inside to hold the brain. The front part [Pg 94] of the skull forms the framework of the face and the jaws. In each ear there are three curious little bones, which aid us in hearing.
5. The Trunk.—The bones of the trunk are, the ribs, the breast-bone, the pelvis, and the back-bone. The bones of the trunk form a framework to support and protect the various organs within its cavities. ”

“ In this is the skull covered with skin and flesh, and containing the brain. The skull rests on the top of the backbone, where the head joins the neck. In the upper part of the neck, the throat divides into two pipes or tubes—one the windpipe, the other the gullet. These running down the neck in front of the vertebral column, covered up by many muscles, when they get about as far down as the level of the shoulders, pass into the great cavity of the body, and first into the upper part of it, or chest. ”

“ What if he could see this, his own skull, yellow and eroded? Two centuries old. Would he still speak? Would he speak, if he could see it, the grinning, aged skull? What would there be for him to say, to tell the people? What message could he bring?
What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull? ”

“ Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I again looked, and now made it out to be a human skull.
"On this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the enigma solved; for the phrase 'main branch, seventh limb, east side,' could refer only to the position of the skull on the tree, while 'shoot from the left eye of the death's-head' admitted, also, of but one interpretation, in regard to a search for buried treasure. ”

“ Now those skulls which have the largest and strongest jaws, and the widest zygomatic aperture, have the muscles so large that they meet on the crown of the skull, and deposit the bony ridge which separates them, and which is the highest in that which has the smallest cranial surface. ”

“ The skull of an adult male gives the following measurements:—Basal length 11·75 inches, orbit to muzzle 6·75, greatest width 4·20.
Female. Like the male, but without horns, and smaller and slighter in build; without a mane on the neck; white marks on the head and throat less pronounced; head more uniformly fawn, and body of a rich reddish fawn only tinged with grey; neck duller than the body. ”

“ The skull is built up of longitudinal cartilaginous pieces, now known as the "parachordals" and "trabeculæ," of sense capsules enclosing the nose and ear, and of various roofing bones. In the historical development of the skull three grades become apparent; a primitive stage, as seen in Amphioxus, where there is nothing but a fibrous investment of the nervous structures; a cartilaginous grade, as seen in the skate or shark, where the skull is formed of cartilage, very imperfectly hardened by earthy deposits; a bony stage, seen in most of the higher animals. ”

“ Of all the parts of the human frame, the skull is that upon which anthropologists have in the past expended the most of their time and thought. We have now, in Great Britain alone, at least four collections of skulls, each of which includes more than a thousand specimens, and in the other great national and university museums of Europe there are large collections available for study and comparison. ”

“ On removing the upper of these two stalagmitic floors a perfect human skull was discovered, along with broken bones of animals, charcoal, limpet shells, bone pins, an instrument of bone like a paper-knife, coarse pottery with fragments of chert imbedded in its mass, a portion of a jet armlet, as well as several boars’ tusks. ”

“ Hence it may be that, for medical reasons, the men of the Stone Age trepanned the skull. But this does not account for all the facts. Why trepan the dead? Why introduce into some skulls the round plates of bone? ”

“ When the skull-cap is ready to come off one will feel it 'wobble.' Insert then the hook under its forward end and pull firmly. The bony skull-cap alone will come away, leaving the periosteum of the inner surface adhering to that of the base of the skull, enveloping the brain, and forming the so-called dura mater or outer one of its 'meninges.' This dura mater should be slit open round the margins, when the brain will be exposed wrapped in its nearest membrane, the pia mater, full of blood-vessels whose branches penetrate the tissues. ”

“ The skull is that of an adult individual, in nearly perfect condition, with the mandible and teeth. The parts missing are the left malar, the left tympanic bone, the distal ends of the pterygoids and the proximal ends of the premaxillæ. ”

“ Other skulls, such as that of a Negro copied in Fig. 28 from Mr. Busk's 'Crania typica,' have a very different, greatly elongated form, and may be termed 'oblong.' In this skull the extreme length is to the extreme breadth as 100 to not more than 67, and the transverse diameter of the human skull may fall below even this proportion. ”

“ An adult male skull is 4·45 inches long from the occiput to the alveolar margin of the pre-maxillaries at the base of the middle upper incisors, 3·35 in basal length from the lower or anterior edge of the foramen magnum to the same, and 2·9 in breadth across the widest part of the zygomatic arches. ”

“ The Fifteen of the Skull are the Coronal for the fore-part of the Head; the Occipital for the hinder-part; the two Parietals for the upper-part and each side; the two Temporals for the Temples; the Os Sphenoides or Cuneiforme, which closeth the Basis or bottom of the Skull; the Os Ethmoides, or Cribriforme, situated at the Root of the Nose; and the four little Bones of the Ear on each side, viz. the Incus or Anvil ”

“ Scarcely in a single instance do the outer plates of the skull-bones correspond permanently with the inner ones, and therefore not with the brain. I call to your recollection only the skulls of certain animals, in which, between the two skull-plates, is to be found a large hollow, as we, indeed, also find in man ”

“ Outlines of the skull from the Neanderthal, of an Australian skull from Port Adelaide, and of the skull from the Cave of Engis, drawn to the same absolute length, in order the better to contrast their proportions.
a b As in figure 4, p. 80. ⁠e The position of the auditory foramen of the Engis skull. skulls belong to one and the same race, so far as race is measured by language, colour of skin, or character of hair. ”

“ The next classification was that by the color of the eyes, as black, brown, hazel, gray, and blue. This subject had also attracted much attention of late, and, within certain limits, the results have proved very valuable. The most favorite classification, however, had always been that according to the skulls. The skull, as the shell of the brain, had by many students been supposed to betray something of the spiritual essence of man; and who could doubt that the general features of the skull, if taken in large averages, did correspond to the general features of human character? ”

“ Skull rather depressed; brain-cavity nearly as long as the beak, depressed, much expanded on the sides, with a very deep notch on the middle of each side over the condyles of the lower jaw, and with a subtriangular crown-plate. The nose as broad as the expanded brain-cavity at the base, regularly attenuated to a fine point in front, and slightly arched downwards. ”

“ The skull is large and solid, with no front teeth; the vertebræ extend to the very tip of the tail, but show no rudiments of posterior limbs; the fore limbs, on the contrary, are very highly developed, the bones exactly corresponding to those of the human arm, having even the five fingers, with every joint distinct, yet enclosed in a stiff inflexible skin, where not a joint can have any motion. ”

“ Concerning the Skull of the Ancient One, and Concerning His Brain; and Concerning the Three Heads, and the Hair, and the Discriminatory Paths The skull of the White Head hath not beginning, but its end is the convexity of its joining together, which is extended, and shineth. ”

“ On looking at the skull we find its base or occipital portion forming a right angle with the obliquely rising upper surface, and a bold transverse ridge is formed by the union of the occipital to the parietal bones, which latter advance above the frontal bones, and form the most elevated portion of the skull. ”

“ The base-line of the skull, so far from "varying irregularly," varies not at all, but is always straight, and in the most natural position of the head is always horizontal, while the frontal line of the face and the dorsal line of the body diverge more and more from the horizontal, and become more and more irregular in figure. ”

“ Directly they set foot in the spirit land, first of all one man came to the Skull and demanded his legs, then another his head, and the next his body, and so on, until in a few minutes the skull was left by itself in all its natural ugliness. ”

“ Escot then detailed by what means he had become possessed of it, which gave birth to various remarks from the other individuals of the party: after which, rising from table, and taking the skull again in his hand:
"This skull," said he, "is the skull of a hero, παλαι κατατεθνειωτος [1] , and sufficiently demonstrates a point, concerning which I never myself entertained a doubt, that the human race is undergoing a gradual process of diminution in length, breadth, and thickness. Observe this skull. ”