If we make a survey of modern Europe we find the long-headed races scattered along her western shores—in Norway, in Britain, in those parts of Denmark, Germany and Holland which flank the North Sea ; in Spain, and to a less degree in parts of France and Italy. Round-headed peoples dominate the great central region of Europe. If, however, we go back 5,000 years and examine the graves of that remote period, we obtain a different picture of head and racial distribution in Europe. The German, the Swiss, the French graves of that time contain the bones of men who were of the long-headed type ; we must suppose them to represent the people of the country at that period. We know from history and from tradition that waves of round-headed races have pressed westwards and southwards in Europe, and all the evidence goes to show that these waves issued from that part of Europe now included in the Russian Empire. We know, too, that an advance guard of the round-head invasion reached our shores some 4,000 years ago, when bronze was the metal employed by civilized races. Graves of these people have been found from Yorkshire to Kent, and in Scotland. They were conquerors and yet they could not save their head-form ; in the course of generations the round head merged in the long, not perhaps without some effect on our modern head-form. We have every reason to think, then, that in Europe the round head is the prevailing type. Indeed, had it not been for the discovery of America and of Australia the long-headed type of European would have been sparsely represented in the modern world.

We now set out to enquire which of these two types of head, the round or the long, is the older or more primitive. We turn first to the anthropoid skull to see in which mould it is cast. In the adults we find that the shape of the essential part of the skull—the part which contains the brain—is masked by a great bony framework which was formed during the years of youth to give attachment to the muscles of mastication. We must, therefore, measure the skulls of the young, and in them we find the breadth amounts to eighty per cent, or more of the length of the skull. The anthropoids are round-headed, especially the orangs. When we look more closely we see that the roundness of the anthropoid head is altogether different in character from the roundness of the modern European head. We see at once that the anthropoid's skull is wide, because the width is increased at the price of height; it gives the impression of having been compressed from above downwards into a bun-shaped form, the width being thus increased and not the length. The apparent compression of the human skull is rather from behind forwards as in round-headed races of men, or from side to side, as in long-headed races. Thus we cannot say that the round type of human head is more anthropoid than the long one.

When, however, we examine the skulls of the most ancient men yet discovered, the evidence is very definite; all of them have the long form of head. In the oldest and most primitive type yet found—the fossil man of Java—the breadth of the skull is seventy-two or seventy-three per cent, of the length ; he is long-headed. We note in this skull, however, a very remarkable feature— it is flattened or compressed from crown to base, as we have seen to be the case in anthropoid skulls. In another very ancient skull from Gibraltar we notice this anthropoid character and also that the breadth is seventyfour per cent, of the length. In the Neanderthal race, which lived in Europe during the glacial period, the head is also of the long type, and indeed the length of their skulls is much above the modern average. The Cro-Magnon race, which came long after the Neanderthal and yet were inhabitants of France before the glacial period had closed, were remarkably long-headed. The oldest man yet discovered in England—the Galley Hill man, who also apparently belongs to the glacial period— had a remarkably narrow and long head; the breadth is only sixty-nine per cent, of its length. From all these facts we must conclude that the long head is the older type. Indeed, all the evidence points to the round form of skull we have seen in the citizen of Strassburg as a comparatively recent product in the evolution of human races. The evolution of the form of the human skull seems to have taken place in the following order. The anthropoid skull, short, wide, flat, seems to be the oldest form. In the early human stock it became long, moderately wide, and flattened; later it became long, narrow, and high, and lastly short, wide, and high.

We have been comparing opposite types of head-form, and we now propose to contrast the most widely divergent types of mankind. As one of these we select again the man from Strassburg, premising that he is of the short-headed or brachycephalic type, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a fair clear skin. Beside him we propose to place, for purposes of contrast, a negro from the heart of Africa. Here I would beg of the reader to break away from the common habit of speaking and thinking of various races as high and low. When we meet the native of the Congo in his home we find that he does not share our opinion that we are of a superior race and type; indeed, his candid opinion is the reverse. High and low refers to civilization; it does not refer to the human body. When we have placed a Central European and a Central African side by side, we see before us the end stems of the two most divergent branches of humanity. They are equally old in type, and we may truthfully say equally specialized. We believe they have arisen from a common stock, but that must be a million of years ago or more. The mere diversity of their bodily features indicates an evolutionary period of great length. We note the difference in their head-form; the negro has a long, narrow head; its cranial capacity is less, and on the average the brain is simpler in its pattern. It is the difference in colour that impresses us most. In the negro the skin and eyes are laden with black pigment, which is being constantly absorbed and constantly renewed. Even the deeper parts of the body show scattered patches of pigment. In the Central European there are pigment granules in the skin, but the skin must be cut in fine sections and examined with the microscope before they are plainly visible. The contrast in colour in the two types is so great that it seems scarcely credible that we are dealing with the same species of being. Indeed, there are many who maintain that they belong to different species. Yet we know that intermixture of these two types produces children which in turn are fertile for generation after generation.