14 The Thirty-Fourth General Meeting. 
Britons. Whilst some believe them to have been nearly exterminated 
or driven westward into Brittany, others, and amongst them Pro- 
fessor Huxley, consider that the amount of Celtic blood in the veins 
of the modern Englishman is considerably in excess of what has 
hitherto been supposed. The investigations of Dr. Beddoe in 
England and of Dr. Broca and Topinard in France tend to confirm 
this view, and to show that in the existing population of Europe and 
in the West of England and Wales in particular, a small dark race 
may still be seen, such as would correspond to the survivors of the 
aboriginal long barrow Britons. If, as seems probable from this, 
the Britons continued to exist in considerable numbers during the 
Saxon epoch, what became of the two distinct races, the long-headed 
dark, short, people, and the tall, round-headed fair people, revealed 
to us by the excavations in the barrows? Did they mix, and in 
mixing blend their physical peculiarities, or did they maintain an 
independent existence, retaining the stature, colour, and head-form 
that belonged to their respective stocks? In the investigation of 
this matter we are met with difficulties in the way of determining 
the nationality of skeletons belonging to the Roman age. The 
Romans did not invade this country alone, but brought with them 
auxiliaries from all parts of the world, who afterwards colonised the 
country, so that, as Mr. Wright has pointed out in his ‘Celt 
Roman, and Saxon,’ a skeleton of this period may be of any 
nationality. It may be that of a Fortensian, a Tungrian, a 
Vetation, a Dalmation, a Crispian, a Spaniard, or a Dacian. These 
colonists, however, appear to have settled more frequently in the 
east and north of Britain. Inthe West of England, and especially 
in spots that are remote from the main centres of Roman occupation, 
the probability of coming upon the skeletons of Britons is very 
much greater. Dr. Thurnam was of opinion that the Durotriges 
of Dorsetshire and the Dobuni of Gloucestershire were aboriginal ~ 
races whose territory may have been encroached upon by the Belge, 
but was never entirely overrun by them. He also draws a dis« 
tinction between the unchambered long barrows of Wiltshire and 
the chambered long barrows of Gloucestershire, for, whilst twenty- 
seven skulls from the unchambered long barrows of Wiltshire had 
