Sept. 7, i'65: 



NA TURE 



46; 



and, prevented from rising higher by the Keuper marls, pro- 

 b.ibly flows a considerable distance under the Thames basin, 

 where its outlet being checked by the thinning out of the Lower 

 Trias against the Palo; >zoic ridge, causes the subterranean Trias 

 to be fully charged with water in a stationary condition, and thus 

 limits the amounts of absorption in the area of absorption. 



Between the base of the Permiau and the Spirorbis limts'one 

 is a thickness of 150 feet, and between it and the first workable 

 coal is a farther 500 feet, of which a large portion c insists of 

 Permian sandstone fully charged with wa'er, which was met 

 with in sinking the Exhall Colliery. 



The report also contains: — Appendix I. — Millstone Grit 

 Wells. Appendix II — Permian and Trias Wells, chiefly col- 

 lected by Mr. E. B. Marten, C.E., Mr. S. Stooke, C.E., and 

 Mr. H. T. Marten, C.E.. Appendix III— Juras ic Wells. 



Appendix IV., by Mr. E. Wethered, F.G.S., is on the 

 porosity and density of rocks, and gives the results of a very 

 elaborate investigation into the size of the grains, in decimals of 

 an inch, making up the | ermeable rocks of England and Wales, 

 of various geological ages, the specific gravity of these rocks, 

 the specific gravity of the particles, the volume of water absorbed 

 by 100 volumes of rock, the number of gallons of water absorbed 

 per cubic foot of rock, and the number of gallons of water 

 absorbed per square mile of rock three feet thick, and the rela- 

 lation of these volumes to the purity of the water obtained. 



First Report of the Committee, consisting of Prof. Flower, Dr. 

 Beddoe, Mr. Brabrook, Mr. F. Gallon, Mr. J. Park Harrison 

 (Secretary), Dr. Muirhead, General Pitt-Rivers, Mr. F. IV. 

 Rudler, and Mr. Charles Roberts, appointed for the purpose of 

 obtaining Photogi ap/is of the Typical Races in the British Piles. 

 — Owing to the accumula'im of observations of height, weight, 

 and other physical characteristics of the inhabitants of the British 

 Isles, the di cussion of which required the undivided attention 

 of the Anthropometric Committee, the acquisition of photo- 

 graphs undertaken by them in 1876 was last year transferred to 

 a C mmittee of the Anthropological Department. 



The photographic portraits already collected have been handed 

 over to the new Committee, and will assist materially in deter- 

 mining the values of crosses in different parts of the country. 

 Some, obtained under exceptionally favourable circumstances, 

 and especially seventeen portraits of Shetland Islanders, well 

 illustrating the Scandinavian element in the population, and 

 presented by I)r. Muirhead, may be safely termed typical. 



The Scientific Bearing of the Subject. — A clear definition of 

 racial features, illustrated by example,, will, the Committee 

 1 el eve, prove of considerable importance in connection with 

 more than one social question. 



1. First, as tending to allay national animosities springing 

 f om a belief in the preponderanc of some one race, and, in con- 

 nection with this, affording a safe basis for generalisation, in the 

 place of deductions depending on doubtful traditions and insuffi- 

 cient historical data. 



2. A correct description of the main racial types would also 

 afford an opportunity of testing in a more c implete manner than 

 is now practicable the truth of views, believed to be extensively 

 held, on the subject of racial tendencies and proclivities 



3. Indirectly, by indicating the way in which feature-, and 

 more especially profiles, of human beings shoul t be observed, it 

 would lead to a more exact description of criminal, and 

 <!eserters, resulting, it cannot be doubted, in more frequent 

 arre ts. At present, so lit le attention is paid to the subject that 

 photographs of prisoners are taken solely in full face, and the 

 description of recruits for the military rolls is confined, so 

 far as their features are concerned, to the colour of the hair aud 

 eyes. 



Erroneous Views regarding the Possibility of a Survival of 

 Racial Features at the Present Day. — Before proceeding further, 

 the Committee think it will be well to notice an objection, not 

 infrequently made, that European populations are now too much 

 mixed to allow of racial types being recognised. This is not the 

 belief of anthropologists generally. Prof, Rolle-ton — whose loss 

 thi i Committee has especial reason to deplore — expressed no un- 

 certain opinion on the subject in his address to the Anthropo- 

 logical Department at Bristol. "At once, upjn the first 

 inspection of a series of crania, or, indeed, of heads, from such 

 a (mixed) race," he said it was evident that "some were refer- 

 able to one, some to ano:her, of one, two, or three typical 

 forms;" also that intercrossing has left the originally distinct 

 forms still in something like their original independence, "and 



in the possession of an overwhelming numerical representation;" 

 and Prof. His was quoted as having arrived at a similar conclu- 

 sion from an investigatfon of the ethnology of Switzerland 

 (Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1S75, p. 14S). 



Prof. Kollmann, too, of Bale, believes that it is quite possible 

 to distinguish original or main racial characteristics in a mixed 

 population, owing to a capacity in skulls and facial skeletons to 

 preserve their pristine types long after the colour of the hair and 

 eyes have changed by crossing. A complete fusion of c miponent 

 elements, the distinguished Professor is convinced, never abso- 

 lutely occurs. 



Reversion to Original Types. — Besides, however, these com- 

 posite forms, eminent anthropologists admit a natural law, 

 through the operation of which a complete reversion takes place, 

 under favourable circumstances, to original types. Drs. Beddoe, 

 Barnard Davis, Flower, Rolleston, Thurnam, and Turner, in 

 this country, and Morton, Broca, Quatrefages, Retzius, and 

 Virchow, abroad, have satisfied themselves, from craniological 

 evidence, that prehistoric characteristic; exist at the present day ; 

 Prof. Quatrefages, than whom the Committee believe there 

 could not be a safer authority, even affirming that representatives 

 of the fossil tyr.es of man are still to be found amongst us 

 (" Crania Ethnica," p. 28). 



Height and Colouroftke Hair and Eyes insufficient as Evidence 

 of Race. — Assuming the correctness of Prof. Kollmann's deduc- 

 1 tions that hair and eyes (permanent in a pare race) change by 

 crossing more easily than skull forms ; dark tints, except under 

 conditions of intensity, joined with diminutive stature and com- 

 plete d jlichocephalism, such as unmistakably point to the race 

 styled Iberian, simply indicate, according to the index of nigres- 

 cence established by Dr. Beddje, more or less mixture in blooi. 

 Where, however, hair and eyes are light, and the stature tall, in 

 the absence of information respecting the features generally, it 

 would be impossible to pronounce any individual to be Celt or 

 Saxon, Dane or Swede. 



Birth of Parents and Gra ndparenti in the sa me Locality no Proof 

 of Race. — An experiment made for the purpose of ascertaining 

 how far the birth of parents and the grandparents, on both sides, 

 in certain districts would assist in the selection of pure local 

 types, resulted in the conclusion that the requirement mentioned, 

 though securing the absence, of recent foreign admixture, failed 

 as a sufficient te,t, by affording no evidence that movements had 

 n>t occurred in the population at an earlier date. 



Photographic portraits obtaiaed under the above-mentioned 

 conditions d) not, as a fact, assist materially in the definition of 

 racial characteristics ; the features exhioi' more than one type 

 even in districts supposed to have been peopled by a given race ; 

 though, owing to the law already alluded to, pure typas may be 

 sought for, and would more frequently be found amongst stub 

 populations than elsewhere. 



This, and other considerations, led a sub-Committee, in 18S0, 

 to collect in preference, from different localities, a certain number 

 of portraits, all of which exhibited similar features ; and then 

 an equal number distinguished by characteristics in all respects 

 different from the first series, but equally homogeneous. They 

 presented contrasts which appeared to be racial. 



Method of Identification of Types adopted by the Committee. 

 — Approaching the subject from the standpoint of comparative 

 physiognomy alluded to in the last paragraph, but experimenting 

 in the first instance on the facial skeletons of skulls obtained 

 from ancient tumuli and cemeteries in different parts of the 

 British Isles, it was found on superimposing tracings of the 

 skeleton profiles of the three main types figured in the "Crania 

 Britannica," that the brows of the Brachycephalic, round-barrow 

 types were more prominent, and the nasal bones more angular 

 and sharply projecting, than those of the Dolichocephalic, long- 

 barrow type ; whilst brows an I nasals in the Teutonic skulls 

 (and especially those o c the Saxons proper) were respectively 

 smooth and little prominent. The main characteristics in the 

 profiles of the Round-barrow man and the Teuton would clearly 

 have been the high-bridge of the nose of the former, and the 

 entire absence of an arched nose in the Saxon. 



Similar results were obtained from measurements of skulls in 

 the Anatomical Museum at Cambridge, purchased from Dr. 

 Thurnam by Prof. Humphry, and presented by him to that 

 University. Also some skulls in the Museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, and the Greenwell collection at Oxford, 

 have been measured and found to exhibit the same contrasts. 

 Mr. Harrison, who obtained the measurements for the informa- 

 tion of the Committee, found that the mean difference in pro- 



