94 REPORT — 1866, 



racteristic of man can be vinwortliy of his attention. It will be only after we have 

 brought together and arranged all the facts and principles which have been esta- 

 blished Lv the various special studies to which I have alluded, that we shall be in 

 a condition to determine the particular lines of investigation most needed to com- 

 plete our knowledge of man, and may hope ultimately to arrive at some definite 

 conclusions on the gi-eat problems which must. interest us all — the questions of the 

 origin, the nature, and the destiny of the human race. I would beg you to recol- 

 lect also that here we must treat all these problems as purely questions of science, 

 to be decided solely by facts and by legitimate deductions from facts. We can 

 accept no conclusions as authoritative that have not been thus established. Our 

 sole object is to find out for ourselves what is our true nature, to feel our way 

 cautiously, step by step, into the dark and mysterious past of human history, to 

 study man under every phase and aspect of his present condition, and from the 

 knowledge thus gained to derive (as we cannot fail to do) some assistance in our 

 attempts to govern and improve uncivilized tribes, some guidance in our own 

 national and individual progress. 



Recent Explorations in Cliamhered Cairns in Caithness. By J. Andeeson. 



On the Stature and Bull- of the Irish, and on Degeneration of Race. 



Btj Dr. J. Beddoe. 

 The author had derived his data from the measurement of 1517 recruits of Irish 

 birth, and of 23 years of age and upwards. The average height and weight yielded 

 by his figures were 5 feet 7"25 inches and 1.38'03 lbs. ; these he supposed to represent 

 corrected averages of 5 feet 7'4 inches and 138'5 lbs., allowing for surplusage. The 

 men were measured and weighed naked. The true average stature of the general 

 population, or of that portion of it which supplied recruits, including men of insuffi- 

 cient height for the army, might be conjectured from the culminating point of the 

 numbers at each inch on tlie scale. It would probably be 5 feet 6-6 inches, or a trifle 

 more, for all Ireland, varying from 5 feet 7'3 inches in the agricultural population 

 of the eastern and southern provinces, to as low as 5 feet ryii inches in Connaught. 

 Dr. Beddoe endeavoured to investigate the proportions of the principal race-elements 

 in the several provinces by the aid of an analysis of the surnames ; he sliowed .that 

 the degradation of stature, so far as the numbers observed enabled him to decide, 

 was greatest among the Connaught people with Saxon or imported names ; and argued 

 the question whether this might be due to the original differences of race, or to the 

 influence of causes of degeneration. 



On Stone Implements of Esquimancc. By Vice-Admiral Sir Edavaed Belcher. 

 On Colonies in South Africa. By W. J. Black. 



On a Condylus Tertius occasionally observed in the Skidls of Natives in the 

 Indian Archipelago. By C. Carter Blake, i\G.S., F.A.S.L. 



The author described the circumstances under which a medial condyle was occa- 

 sionally developed from the basioccipital bone, and compared the obseiwations 

 of Halbertsma and Barnard Davis. The most striking case he had yet observed was 

 one which was presented by a skull of a Ycnadie from Striliureecottah, in Madras. 

 The condylus tertius had liere articulated with the odontoid process of the axis 

 Aertebra. 



On Skulls from Round Barrows in Dorsetshire. By C. C. Blake, F.G.S., 

 Curator and Librarian, Anthrop. Soc. Lond. 



The autli or remarked that they were obtained by Dr. Hunt, the President of the 

 Anthropological Society, from some barrows near Blandford. Dr. Thurnam, in a 

 dissertation on the two principal forms of English and Gaulish skulls, gave a table 

 containing the measurement of twenty-five skulls from the English round barrows. 



