TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 191 



case. May it have been a fetish or charm ? The shin-bone is Hat, as in the 

 skeletons touncl by i\Ir. Busk at Gibraltar. 



Passing to the interior, the rock at the bottom descends to a lower level. In 

 those recesses occur the remains of Ursus spdarts, Hyana spelcca, Rhinoceros, &c. 

 Thus if the skeleton does not carry us back to tlie days of the extinct animals 

 (unless the deer may be of an extinct species), it is a very interesting relic of the 

 "Flint Age." It may, however, be asked, How are we to fix the termination of 

 that ago ? Does it not vary with the approach to civilization of dift'erent races ? 

 To this day with the Esquimaux that age has not terminated. 



The immediate neighbourhood of this cave does, however, afford proof that 

 man %vas contemporaneous with the extinct beasts, as the author showed at 

 Edinburgh, where he stated that at a depth of thirty feet, in breccia (formed of 

 angular stones, luted together by carbonate of lime and oxide of iron, and so solid 

 that it could only be worked by blasting), he had himself taken out the remains of 

 Ursus spelanis &c. in contact with flints worked by man, which may now be seen 

 in the temporary museum. 



The author concluded with testifying to the zeal, talent, and laudable perseve- 

 rance of Dr. Riviere, the gentleman who discovered this highly interesting skeleton. 



On the Ethnohcjical Affi,nities of tlie French and English Peoples. 

 By Dr. T. Nicholas, M.A., F.G.S. 



Having assumed that Britain had been first peopled from Gaul, a fact partly 

 substantiated by Cajsar, the author proceeded to inquire into those changes, or 

 supposed changes, of race-character which various conquests had brought upon both 

 peoples. Having intimated that the Roman occupation of several hundred years 

 had resulted in greater race-admixture on both sides of the Channel than was 

 usually allowed, the author argued, from a rapid glance at the Frankish conquest 

 of Gaul by Clovis, and the second conquest by Pepin and Charlemagne, that they 

 had not very extensively imbued the Gallic population with Frankish blood, and, 

 in like manner, that tiae parallel conquest of Britain by the Germans, usually 

 known as the Saxon Conquest, had only very partially converted the people of 

 Britain into Anglo-Saxons, except in name. The Britons, instead of having been, 

 according to the popular representation based on the ' De excidio Britannias ' of the 

 supposititious Gildas, exterminated or bodily expelled the country, had in time 

 coalesced with the invaders and become one people. This was the only way in 

 which seven or eight populous sovereignties could be furnished with subjects in 

 so short a time. Before the descent upon Neustria by Rollo, and the conquest of 

 England by the Danes and Normans, therefore, the Celtic character of the mass of 

 the French people had not been greatly changed, and the people of England were in 

 all probability less German than Celtic. It followed that the term "Anglo-Saxon" 

 could only be applied to the English in the same unscientific way as the term 

 " Franks" (French) was applied to the substantially Gallic inhabitants of Gaul, 

 and always involved a distortion of the truth. The Norman Conquest was achieved 

 by an army presumably more Gallic than Norman, and had therefore only added 

 to the Celtic blood of England; while the Norman conquest of Neustria had 

 affected but a small fraction of the French, and affected that fraction ethnically 

 but very slightly. The conclusion, therefore, fi-om this parallel, as from the other 

 parallels in the history of the two nations, was, that they have continued to 

 partake largely of Celtic blood, although not so largely as in pre-Roman times. 

 The English, less Teutonized than was usually supposed hj the Anglian and 

 Jutish incursions, had, during the Danii?h and Norman periods, been rendered con- 

 siderably less Celtic than their neighbours across the Channel. The physical 

 characteristics of the French, as determined bj' Broca, Edwards, and others, and 

 some of their mental and social characteristics, were pointed out as constituting 

 points of difference between them and the English. On the whole, the claims to 

 sympathy and amity which, on ethnological grounds, the two nations had on each 

 other were held by the author to be strong. 



14* 



