TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION H. 727 



men (76'8) at Newcastle Emlyn, some distance up the Teify. They occur in large 

 numbers along the open coast from Llanrhystyd to New Quay, and extend east- 

 ward up the valley of the Wyre and, further south, across the low hills of 

 Mynydd Bach into the centre of the county, around Pontrhydfendigaid, Tregaron 

 and Llanddewi Brefi, and here it is the individuals with an index of 79'80 who 

 predominate, while their features are more strongly developed than in the case 

 of the Newcastle Emlyn men. They are opisthognathous and slightly taller 

 (1,699 mm.) than the Mediterranean people, but include several individuals about 

 1,800 mm. in height, the average being brought down by occasional very short 

 individuals (below 1,600 mm.). The fair type becomes decidedly rarer inland 

 north of the Wyre, and this is interesting, as that valley forms one of the most 

 marked dialect boundaries in Wales, and the hills above it have a remarkable 

 series of early earthworks which need further study. 



Among the fair people, as among the dark, increase of head index is correlated 

 with a decrease of head length, which is continuous except for a break due to a 

 number of exceptionally big men (average stature, 1,724 mm.) with index 78"9. 

 Here and there, and notably around Tregaron, there are men with index about 

 78'81, red hair, florid features, large foreheads, prominent zygomatic arches, 

 and often an insinking of the cheek. Our observations point to their being the 

 result of crossing between fair and dark types, but this opinion is stated with 

 reserve for the present. 



A similar account of Merionethshire will be ready, we hope, before long, and 

 similar work is in progress for Carnarvonshire and Carmarthenshire, while 

 numerous observations have been collected for other counties and a definite 

 campaign in Glamorganshire is being organised. 



2. The People of Egypt. 

 By Professor G. Elliot Smith, M.A., M.D., F.R.S. 



Recent experience has shown that no attempt to reconstruct the history of man 

 in Egypt is likely to yield other than wholly inconclusive, if not actually confusing 

 and misleading, results, unless it is based upon the study of the physical characters 

 (and not of mere measurements) of large series of accurately dated human remains 

 cf people of various social grades, representative of every historical period, and 

 of each of the three primary subdivisions of the lower Nile Valley, viz., Lower 

 Egypt, Upper Egypt, and Lower Nubia. 



In the present state of our knowledge it would be idle to discuss the origin of 

 the Predynastic Egyptian population beyond stating that the people show un- 

 doubted affinities with the so-called ' Mediterranean Race ' as well as with the 

 Arabs, and that they must have been settled in the Nile valley for many ages 

 before they constructed the earliest prehistoric graves known to us, for their 

 peculiarly distinctive culture, their arts, their mode of writing, and their religion 

 were certainly evolved in Egypt. 



But even before the end of the Predynastic period a slight change in the 

 physical traits of the population can be detected ; although it is not until more than 

 four centuries later, i.e., until the time of the Third Dynasty, that the modification 

 of the physical type becomes sufficiently pronounced to afford unmistakable 

 evidence of its significance. For then the three Nile territories under considera- 

 tion had each its own distinctive people : Lower Nubia, a population essentially 

 identical with the Predynastic Egyptian, but slightly tinctured with negro ; Lower 

 Egypt, the descendants of the Predynastic Egyptians, profoundly modified by 

 admixture with alien white immigrants, who entered the Nile valley via the 

 Delta; and Upper Egypt, protected by its geographical position from the direct 

 effect of either of these foreign influences, was being subjected to the indirect 

 influence of both by the intermingling of its people with those of Nubia and 

 Northern Egypt. 



In the time of the Middle Kingdom this double racial influence became much 

 more pronounced in the Thebaid, and the effect of the white immigration became 

 almost as pronounced there as it had been in Lower Egypt in the times of the 

 Pyramid builders of the Old Kingdom. The Nubian element also became more 

 significant, the influx consisting at various times of slaves, mercenaries, and 



