v BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 257 



ter. As to the distribution of these stocks, all that 

 is clear is, that the dark people were predominant 

 in certain parts of the west of the southern half 

 of Britain, while the fair stock appears to have 

 furnished the chief elements of the population 

 elsewhere. 



No ancient writer troubled himself with mea- 

 suring skulls, and therefore there is no direct evi- 

 dence as to the cranial characters of the fair and 

 the dark stocks. The indirect evidence is not very 

 satisfactory. The tumuli of Britain of pre-Roman 

 date have yielded two extremely different forms of 

 skull, the one broad and the other long; and the 

 same variety has been observed in the skulls of 

 the ancient Gauls.* The suggestion is obvious 

 that the one form of skull may have been associated 

 with the fair, and the other with the dark, com- 

 plexion. But any conclusion of this kind is at once 

 checked by the reflection that the extremes of long 

 and short-headedness are to be met with among 

 the fair inhabitants of Germany and of Scandinavia 

 at the present day — the south-western Germans 

 and the Swiss being markedly broad-headed, while 

 the Scandinavians are as predominantly long- 

 headed. 



What the natives of Ireland were like at the 

 time of the Roman conquest of Britain, and for 

 centuries afterwards, we have no certain knowl- 



* See Dr. Thurman " On the Two principal Forms of 

 Ancient British and Gaulish Skulls." 



181 



