194 KEPORT— 1873. 



condition of things from that which had been described by the trustworthy author 

 ah-eady referred to as existing- in Wiltshire, and would have to be explained either 

 as being the result of an intermixture of the two races peacefully, or as the mani- 

 festation of a tendency to A'ariation not unparallelled even in wild tribes. The form 

 of cranium which Retzius had called the •' Common Celtic form" (see 'Journal 

 of Anatomy,' vol. iii. p. 254, 1868) was almost entirely absent in this series. The 

 same remarks applied to the form of cranium known as the " Borris Type " (see 

 Huxley in ' Prehistoric Remains of Caithness,' p. 128). 



On the Wedclo of Oe)/lon. By Professor Rollestox, M.D., F.E.S. 



Professor Rolleston exhibited ten photographs of the Jungle Weddo, taken by 

 B. F. Hartshorne, Esq., as also three skulls of the same tribe procured by the same 

 gentleman, and some skulls of certain Kolarian tribes procured by II. Duthoit, Esq., 

 of Mrzapore, and exhibited for the sake of comparison with those of the Ceylon 

 aborigines. There was no doubt about the genuineness of the three Weddo 

 skidls ; yet one of the three was as markedly brachycephalic (the cephalic index 

 being 81) as the others, or as Weddo skulls usually, were dohchocephalic. The 

 cephalic indices in the two other skulls procm-ed from the district of the Juno-le 

 Weddo, a tribe now numbering, in all probability, little over 100 persons, were'Vo 

 and 7(3. In three other Weddo skulls, two of which had been obtained by 

 Lieutenant Perkins for Canon Greenwell, and the third had been presented by 

 ]Mr. Sabonnadiere to the Oxford University Museum, the cephalic indices were 

 respectively 72, G8, and 64. The cubic capacity in each of the two dolichocephalic 

 crania sent by Mr. Ilartshorne was 85-25 cubic inches and 80 cubic inches re- 

 spectively ; the cubic capacity of the single brachycephalic specimen was, approxi- 

 matively, 69 cubic inches. It was of importance to note that synostosis could 

 have had nothing to do with the briiiging about of the aberrances of the brachy- 

 cephalic Weddo cranium ; for the coronal suture was open whilst the sagittal was 

 obliterated, the veiy condition which, if the shape of the skull had ruled the 

 shape of the brain instead of the reverse, would have produced dolichocephaly. 

 The presence of parietal occipital flattening on the left side (a deformity uninten- 

 tionally produced during early life by the mode of cai-rving the infant) was also 

 noteworthy as being rarely observed except in brachvcephalous skulls. With re- 

 ference to the large question of the affinities of the Dravidian races of Continental 

 India to the AVeddo of Ceylon, Professor Rolleston referred to the papers on Indian 

 Ethnology piiblished in the ' Journal of the Ethnological Society,' July 1869 by 

 Sir Walter Elliot, George Campbell, Esq., Dr. CampbeU, and others. 



Beluj'wus Cairns of the Himalayan Region. By R. B. Shaav. 



AH through the Himalayan region, the slopes of the Dhaola Dhar inhabited by 

 high-caste Hindus, on the barren plains and in the roclry valleys of Tibet amou"- 

 the Buddhist hill-men, and in the gorges of the Kuenlun Mountains until they 

 debouch upon the plains of Turkistan, there are to be found cairns of a similar 

 description and placed in similar situations. The crests of passes, the summits of 

 isolated points of rock, or any other place from which a remarkable view is obtained 

 of a mighty peak or a terrific precipice are the positions they generally occupy. 

 Throughout the whole of this region they are adorned in a similar way, beino- stuck 

 over with tall sticks, from which wave rags and flags and tails of horse or yak, the 

 votive ofierings of passers by. 



When we find that these cairns, similar in character and similar in position, are 

 to be found throughout regions inhabited by men of three diferetit races and three 

 different reh(ji07is, who each ascribe to them a different origin and a different pur- 

 pose, the importance of the subject is evident. No one who has observed carefully 

 the facts on the spot is likely to doubt that the monuments in the several districts 

 in question were all erected with the same intent, whatever that was. The posi- 

 tion of most of them forbids the supposition that they can have been landmarks 

 or tombs. The labour bestowed in fetching the stones, often from along distance, 



