46 PROCEEDINGS OP THE ACADEMY OP 



heads of the ancient Egyptians, well seen in the skulls also, ■which Morton has 

 not expressly mentioned, but which always strikes us at the first glance. Like 

 all ocular impressions, it is more readily perceived than described. But it arises 

 from the particular outlines by which the profile of the cranium is circumscribed. 

 The base line, the most essential feature, runs along the whole of the base of the 

 lower jaw from the tip of the pointed chin, and passing thence directly to and 

 along all the external centre of the occipital bone as far as its tuberosity. This 

 base line may be seen to be totally at variance with the line which bounds the 

 ancient British skull in the same direction from the profiles before the Academy. 

 "We believe it is only found in crania of an African lineage, and in none so level 

 and uniform as in those of the ancient Egyptians. If we let down upon this 

 base a facial line, which shall run along the forehead, and, with only a slight 

 deviation, till it runs also along the forepart of the pointed chin, we thus bound 

 the cranium in these two directions by right lines, which meet at a more acute 

 angle than in any other race. They are strictly Egyptian in their character, for 

 in the negro races this facial line has no proper commencement from the re- 

 ceding forehead, and is seriously interrupted by the prognathous jaws and teeth. 

 It is the form we have thus endeavored to analyse and describe which imparts 

 to the ancient Egyptian skull its delicate and elegant character. 



How diverse is the robust erect form of the ancient British skull, marked by 

 great depressions of the facial surfsice, and instead of the graceful long nasal 

 bones, abrupt and short ones, standing immediately below the frowning frontal 

 protuberance, with the intervening hiatus. All which features impress the 

 mind with feelings of a much less complacent kind, and inevitably lead to the 

 conviction that we have before us the representation of a bold uncivilized nature 

 — full of power, and not deficient in capacity, but quite incapable of refinement 

 and the graces of cultivation. These Egyptian and British cranial forms are 

 strikingly at variance, although probably owning an equal antiquity — indeed 

 we see no good reason whatever, why these different people may not have been 

 primeval contemporaries ; and yet the marks of diversity they present are as 

 clear and sharp as any that can be adduced among any modern people. They 

 point, therefore, in an irresistible manner to a primordial difference. 



The ancient Britons themselves, it is probable, may be regarded as an idio- 

 geneoiis race, i. e., taken as a whole proper in their characters, physical and 

 moral, and distinct from all others. Whether the ancient Gauls resembled them 

 in all particulars, seems very doubtful. They admit of comparison with other 

 people of ancient and modern times, but we are inclined to think, were we able 

 to realize a faithful and complete picture of them, it would present irreconcila- 

 ble discrepancies with other races. They had many marks of agreement with 

 the Indian Tribes of North Amei'ica. They dwelt in a temperate region, where 

 animal and vegetable life was abundant, and devoted themselves to the chase, 

 in which they were assisted by the aborignal hounds of Britain. Claudian, in 

 his allusion to these dogs, represents them as capable of overcoming bulls. 



hfe pedibus celeres : has nare sagaces. 



Hirsutaeque fremunt Cressffi, tenuesque Lacaenae, 

 Magnaque taurorum fracturas colla Britannae. 



The Britons were equally possessed of the small indigenous horse of the coun- 

 try. They also found in the native forests animals of chase of equal, nay great- 

 er, magnitude than that of the Buifalo of the prairie, and, we have reason to 

 think, were as successful as the Indians of the northern part of this continent 

 in their pursuit of them. A Barrow opened in the parish of Cherhill near Calne 

 in Wiltshire, in 1833, revealed a number of bones, and among them were the 

 enormous horns of an ox, the horn-cores of which had a circumference of 15J 

 inches at the root, and in their widest expansion, a diameter of 33 inches. Be- 

 sides this collossal ox they had other bovine cattle, and deer, of the hunting of 

 which with hounds the Romano-British pottery aS'ords numerous pictures, as 

 it seems to have been a favorite subject with the artists for the Samian ware. 

 It appears at first view an astonishing circumstance that the weapons of chase, 



[Feb. 



