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XXV.— Oh the Eead-Forms of the West of England. By 

 John Beddoe, B.A., M.D., F.A.S.L., F.E.S., Foreign 



Associate of tlie Antliropological Society of Paris. 



In anthropology, as in cliemistry, and other progressive 

 sciences, the disposal or modification of old theories, renders 

 ambiguous or misleading terms that once appeared to have a 

 definite and unequivocal meaning. Kelt and Keltic are words 

 which were useful in their day, but which have ceased to 

 convey a distinct idea to the minds of modern students of the 

 science. I ask the indulgence of those who on this ground 

 would object to the frequent use of these words in the present 

 paper. I could have employed no others in their place without 

 still greater risk of being misunderstood. The sense in which 

 I use them will, I think, become tolerably clear in the sequel, 

 and I apply them, in fact, to the common element of race in 

 ancient Gaul, Britain, Ireland, Noricum, and Keltiberia. 



It is my principal object, in the present paper, to throw 

 some additional light on the vexed subject of the Keltic skull- 

 form, by adducing a series of unpublished facts. These facts are 

 derived for the most part from mensuration of the heads of 

 natives of the south-western counties, and of Wales and Ireland. 

 The people subjected to examination were mostly either inmates 

 of certain factories and workshops which I visited for the pur- 

 pose, or applicants at the Bristol Royal Infirmary; but, as a 

 certain number of persons belonging to the professional and 

 trading classes were added, it is probable that the general 

 population, except its purely rural section, was fairly repre- 

 sented. 



It can hardly be said now, as it was, not many years ago, that 

 the question as to the true Keltic head-form is as far as ever 

 from being settled. The materials for its determination which 

 have been accumulated and utilised by Davis, Thurnam, and 

 Daniel Wilson, by Broca and Belloguet, and the acute obser- 



