xe 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 85 
virgin soil upon which the foundation rested, and in this soil and under the lime 
floor, without any exception whatever, the remains when present were found. 
The skulls so obtained were with one exception in so frail and crumbling a con- 
dition that it was found impossible to remove them, except in almost hopeless frag- 
ments, but by carefully saturating them with glue and cementing them together, 
they were restored to the condition in which they then appeared (specimens were 
exhibited). 
The ten towers examined were Drumbo, Trummery, Clones, Armoy, Drumlane, 
Rams’ Island, Devenish, Island Mahee, Antrim and Torry. Five of these towers 
contained human osseous remains; one had been previously disturbed, and four ex- 
hibited no trace whatever of any. At Trummery, a tower of comparatively recent 
erection, according to Dr. Petrie, the osseous remains were found in a carefully con- 
structed stone chamber. 
Of the eleven skulls discovered within the Round Towers, one was found at 
Drumbo ; one at Truntmery; six at Clones; two at Armoy ; and one at Drumlane. 
The whole collection (including crania from various other sources) was thrown 
into four chronological groups, viz. the Prehistoric, the Remote historic, the Anglo- 
Trish and the modern periods. The eleven crania from the round towers were re- 
ferred to the second or Remote historic group, which from Dr. Petrie’s researches 
must belong to a period ranging between the fifth and thirteenth centuries. The tower 
of Drumbo not being of later erection than the sixth century, the cranium must have 
an antiquity of not less than twelve or thirteen hundred years. Drumlane tower 
being of nearly the same period, scarcely so old, its cranium therefore might be one 
thousand or eleven hundred years old. 
The collection exhibited unquestionable evidence of the existence in Ireland at 
various epochs of strikingly contrasted varieties of the human family. But amongst 
the varieties of form attention was fixed upon one fact strongly shown, viz. the 
tenacity with which different types preserved their identity through periods of time 
which embraced no small portion of the history of mankind. 
The crania of the second group, viz. those found in the round towers, it was sug- 
gested, might possibly represent the magnates of their day. The construction of an 
elaborate stone chamber under the tower of Trummery would scarcely have been 
undertaken unless the individual had been a person of some importance, probably 
the immediate progenitor of the erector of the tower; yet, although the interment 
took place within the tower, it was not to be assumed that the towers were built for 
such a purpose. The decapitation of a slain chieftain, either by friendly or hostile 
hands, was a matter of ordinary occurrence ; now with the cranium from Armoy 
were found the three superior cervical vertebra, and no more, precisely so much of 
the spinal column as would remain attached to the head when separated from the 
trunk. Hence the inference was not unreasonable that it was removed from some 
fallen chieftain to rescue it from indignity, and the tower in which it was found 
being probably then in the course of erection, was there interred, just as the head of 
Diarmid M‘Fergus was buried at Clonmacnoise and his body at Connor, as recorded 
in the annals of the four masters a.p. 565. 
A hope was expressed that the collection was but the commencement of one cal- 
culated one day to afford useful data to science; and the author concluded by ex- 
pressing his own belief, that, though these interesting relics of dim and distant ages 
and their congeners of more modern times might present to the eye of the ordinary 
observer but few and barren facts, they would be found, nevertheless, when viewed 
through the medium of what appeared to some minds a deeper research and more 
exact knowledge, to stand forth, voiceless and unsuggestive as they seemed, enduring 
hieroglyphs of our race pregnant with meaning of hidden but grave import, and not, 
perhaps, of very difficult decipherment. 

On the Ethnological Bearing of the Recent Discoveries in Connexion with 
the Assyrian Inscriptions. By the Rev. Evwarp Hincxs, D.D. 
Correct ethnological reasoning must be founded on facts, of the present or former 
existence of which we have satisfactory evidence; that is, statements in relation to 
them, reduced to writing while they still existed, and that by persons who must 
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