v BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 2G1 



merits of the solution of which are not attain- 

 able. 



I am unable to discover any grounds for believ- 

 ing that a Lapp element has ever entered into the 

 population of these islands. So far as the physical 

 evidence goes, it is perfectly consistent with the 

 hypothesis that the only constituent stocks of that 

 population, now, or at any other period about 

 which we have evidence, are the dark whites, 

 whom I have proposed to call " Melanochroi," and 

 the fair whites, or " Xanthochroi." 



IV. The Xanthochroi and the Melanochroi of 

 Britain are, speaking broadly, distributed, at pres- 

 ent, as they were in the time of Tacitus; and their 

 representatives on the continent of Europe have 

 the same general distribution as at the earliest 

 period of which we have any record. 



At the present day, and notwithstanding the 

 extensive intermixture effected by the movements 

 consequent on civilization and on political changes, 

 there is a predominance of dark men in the west, 

 and of fair men in the east and north, of Britain. 

 At the present day, as from the earliest times, the 

 predominant constituents of the riverain popula- 

 tion of the North Sea and the eastern half of the 

 British Channel, are fair men. The fair stock con- 

 tinues in force through Central Europe, until it is 

 lost in Central Asia. Offshoots of this stock ex- 

 tend into Spain, Italy, and Northern India, and 

 by way of Syria and North Africa, to the Canary 



