proceedings: anthropological society 375 



his parents when but ten years of age. He received degrees in medi- 

 cine from the National Medical College, now merged with the George 

 Washington University, and from the University of Pennsylvania. 

 Beginning practice in Virginia, he helped treat the Confederate wounded 

 after the battle of Bull Run. Soon after, he served as Acting Assistant 

 Surgeon, U. S. A., at the Lincoln Hospital, in Washington. In 1870 

 he became assistant, and later, professor in obstetrics in the National 

 Medical College, and in the University of Vermont, which positions he 

 filled until his death, through a period of 43 years. He is survived by 

 his widow and three children. He belonged to the Anthropological, 

 the Medical and other scientific societies of Washington and also to 

 foreign societies, and made many contributions to medical and scien- 

 tific hterature. His best known work is A manual of obstetrics. Among 

 his papers of interest to anthropologists are those on Hysteria and 

 functional reversion. He read a paper before the Anthropological 

 Society in 1881 on The evolution of marriage ceremony and its import. 

 The following year he was elected a member of the Council. He was a 

 man of charming personality, and lived an exceptionally happy, nor- 

 mal, and complete life. 



At the 483d meeting of the Society, held February 16, 1915, at the 

 Public Library, a paper was read by Mr. William H. Babcock on The 

 races of Britain, and brief reports were made by Messrs. W. H. Holmes, 

 J. W. Fewkes, Truman Michelson. and J. N. B. Hewitt on Recent 

 field research in anthropology and ethnology. Mr. Babcock pointed out 

 that three native languages are spoken in the island of Great Britain — 

 English over the greater part of it, Welsh in parts of the western moun- 

 tains, and Gaelic in the northern mountains — a situation which was the 

 same in the latter part of the sixth century, excepting differences in 

 the area of each. These languages represent three distinct waves of 

 invasion by people who were blond when of pure blood ; yet the present 

 population contains a great number of brunets or persons of medium 

 tint, and brunetness seems to be gaining on blondness. The best ex- 

 planation seems to be that the blond conquerors found in Britain a 

 long established and thoroughly acclimated darker population, which 

 perhaps remained more numerous than the newcomers and certainly 

 was better adapted to permanently transmit its characteristics. This 

 was composed mainly of a fairly advanced neolithic race, probably from 

 southern Europe, with whatever paleolithic stocks may have been ab- 

 sorbed by them. The historic conquests of Great Britain — Roman, 

 Saxon, Danish, and Norman — have not changed the essential result, 

 which consists of a darker substratum gradually gaining on superim- 

 posed Celtic and Teutonic layers. 



Professor Holmes outlined the work done recently in California by 

 himself and Dr. Ales Hrdlicka. The Panama-California Exposition 

 had assigned funds to Dr. Hrdlicka for the preparation of an exhibit 

 illustrating the physical history and present status of man, and to 

 Professor Holmes for another illustrating the practice of certain Indus- 



