574 REPORT— 1883. 
and. social characteristics, which appeared to connect them with the Taranian 
peoples of India. Mr. Fornander’s theory of a pre-Vedic Aryan origin for the- 
Polynesians was considered, and it was suggested that a Dravidian origin for them 
was. more probable. This view agreed with the opinion expressed by Mr. Keane 
as to.a connection between the Polynesians and the Khmérs of Cambodia, seeing 
that, as the paper showed, the Khmérs were settlers from Upper India, and pro- 
bably Dravidians, more or less Aryanised. Their occupation of Cambodia would 
lead to a movement among the native inhabitants, many of whom fled to the 
Indian islands. A similar movement would appear to have taken place at a later: 
period during the era of Wakea, a chief of Gilolo, about the first century B.c., 
when the. migrations of the Polynesians over the Pacific began. They doubtless, 
however, followed in the footsteps of peoples belonging to the same stock, a 
tradition of whose voyages would be handed down to the Polynesians. 
2. The Germanic and Rheetian Hlements in Switzerland. 
By Joun Bepvoz, M.D., F.R.S. 
The anthropology of Switzerland has been much studied, and to a great extent 
disentangled, by His and Riitimeyer, Dunant, Guillaume, Kollmann, Studer, and 
the investigators of the lake-dwellings. The author had lately visited the eastern 
part of the country, and collated with his personal observations what these authors 
have stated as to the stature, colour, and head-form of the people. 
The Swiss, or at least the eastern and central Swiss, speaking for the most part 
High Dutch, used to be reckoned with ourselves as a Teutonic people. There is, 
however, one strong objection to be taken to a system of classification of European 
peoples which ranks together the English and the Swiss. The head-form of the 
former is distinctly long, and that of the latter short and broad. The English form 
may be called by some orthocephalic, or mesocephalic, or mesaticephalic, but it 
certainly inclines pretty decidedly to the long end of the scale. Dr. Barnard 
Davis, in his ‘ Thesaurus,’ puts the mean index of longitude at 76 or 77: probably 
about 77 is correct. Now His and Riitimeyer assign a breadth-index of over 
86 to their typical Disentis skull, and ascribe to the Disentis type the majority of 
modern Swiss heads. I am not aware that anyone has ventured to state an 
average index for Switzerland; but such average would evidently be somewhere 
very far beyond 80, as is the case in most, if not all, of the surrounding countries, 
as Savoy, Bavaria, Tyrol, and, in a less marked degree, even Wiirtemberg and 
Lombardy. 
On the other hand the distribution of colours among the Swiss does not differ 
very notably from that which obtains among the English. One might be trans- 
ported from Ziirich to London, or vice versd, without noticing anything in the 
complexions of the people to remind one of the fact. Nor are the prevailing 
features by any means so different from those of the English as is the usual form 
of head. 
The results of the official examination of the colours of hair and eyes in the 
Swiss schools accord fairly well with the idea that the light complexion invaded 
the country by crossing the Rhine from Swabia into Aargau, and thence radiating 
through the central cantons, but fining down considerably before reaching the 
eastern and western frontiers. Putting the Celtic Helvetii for the moment out of 
the question, this is what might be expected to remain as the evidence of the 
Allemannic and Burgundian invasion. But, as we have reason to believe that both 
the Allemans and the Burgundians were long-headed as well as light-haired, we 
might reasonably expect to find a longer head geographically accompanying the 
lighter complexion. And so, probably, it does, but not so conspicuously as might 
have been looked for. The point has not, so far as the author is aware, been worked 
out by Swiss anthropologists with the detail which it merits. 
While welcoming the gigantic masses of statistics respecting colour of eyes and 
hair which have been given us through the exertions of Virchow, Vanderkindere, 
and Kollmann, the author has always insisted on the necessity of remembering the im- 
