284 . CRANIA HELVETICA. 
the first four centuries of our era. The type Bel-Air (III) only makes its ap- 
pearance in the tombs of the Merovingian period ; and the type Disentis, (IV,) 
which is the most widely spread in the Switzerland of modern times, was like- 
wise that of the age of stone in ancient Helvetia. There is a very similar type 
found in the most ancient tombs of the Scandinavian countries; but according 
to a late communication which I have received from Baron Von Duben, pro- 
fessor at Stockholm, the Sion type also existed in Sweden in the age of stone. 
A considerable number of the many skulls, whose figures are given by MM. 
His and Rutimeyer, form part of my own collection, and of these I have de- 
rived some very remarkable specimens from an extensive cemetery, situated at 
my country seat of Bel-Air, near Lausanne, which I have been exploring for 
several years. It was in this cemetery that I found the annexed skull, (V,) the 
only one of its kind, and in some respects like those of the ancient Peruvians ; 
but this having been already published on more than one occasion, I shall ab- 
stain here from any comments in regard to it, in order to draw your attention 
to an observation of a more general nature. 
V. 
The tombs of Bel-Air, superposed in three successive layers underground, 
pertain to the period which elapsed from the fall of Rome to Charlemagne. I 
haveexplored since 1838, in the canton de Vaud, a great number of cemeteries of 
the same period, and notwithstanding the variety of skulls that are found of the 
same epoch, I observe that the prevailing type in these sepulchres is of an 
elongated form, whose anterior development is in general very slight. This ob- 
servation is of interest in view of the fact that these tombs contain the remains 
of the true ancestors of the present population of the canton de Vaud, and that 
the general form of the skulls of this country presents, in modern times, less 
posterior development anda more rounded outline—a form, therefore, more ad- 
vantageous in an intellectual point of view. We have here, then, a population 
in which we may remark that, notwithstanding the persistence of certain types, 
civilization bas had tor its result a sensible modification of the encephalon inan 
ascending scale, a direction in which progression is always much slower than in 
the opposite one of degradation. 
Permit me, sir, with this remark, to renew to you the expression of my most 
distinguished consideration. 
FRED. TROYON. 
Lausanne, November 10, 1864. 
