v BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 203 



tween the two, thins out, so to speak, at either end, 

 and mingles, at its margins, with both its neigh- 

 bours. 



Such is a brief and summary statement of what 

 I believe to be the chief facts relating to the physical 

 ethnology of the people of Britain. The conclu- 

 sions which I draw from these and other facts are 

 — (1) That the Melanochroi and the Xanthochroi 

 are two separate races in the biological sense of 

 the word race; (2) That they have had the same 

 general distribution as at present from the earliest 

 times of which any record exists on the continent 

 of Europe; (3) That the population of the British 

 Islands is derived from them, and from them 

 only. 



The people of Europe, however, owe their na- 

 tional names, not to their physical characteristics, 

 but to their languages, or to their political rela- 

 tions; which, it is plain, need not have the slightest 

 relation to these characteristics. 



Thus, it is quite certain that, in Caasar's time, 

 Gaul was divided politically into three nationali- 

 ties — the Belgge, the Celtae, and the Aquitani; and 

 that the last were very widely different, both in 

 language and in physical characteristics, from the 

 two former. The Belgas and the Celtae, on the 

 other hand, differed comparatively little either in 

 physique or in language. On the former point 

 there is the distinct testimony of Strabo; as to the 

 latter, St. Jerome states that the " Galatians had 



