148 KKPORT — 1875. 



Matters would he very different wlien the craiiiographer came to deal t^'itll a 

 mixed race like our own, or like the population of (Switzerland, the investigation 

 into the craniology of which has resulted in the production of the invaluable 

 ' Crania Helvetica ' of His and Riitimeyer. At once, upon the first inspection of 

 a series of crania, or, indeed, of heads, from such a race, it is evident that some are 

 referable to one, some to another, of one, two, or three typical forms, and tliat a 

 residue remains whose existence and character is perhaps explained and expressed 

 by calling- them " Mischformen." Then arises a most interesting question — Has the 

 result of intercrossing been such as to give a preponderance to these " Miscii- 

 formen?" or has it not rather been such as in the ultimate resort, whilst still 

 testified to by the presence of intermediating and interconnecting links, to have 

 left the originally distinct forms still in something like their original independence, 

 and in the possession of an unoverwhelmed numerical representation ? The latter 

 of these two alternative possibilities is certainly often to be seen realized within 

 the limits of a modern so-called "English" or so-called "British" family; and 

 His has laid this down as being the result of the investigations above-mentioned 

 into the Ethnology of Switzerland. At the same time it is of cardinal importance 

 to note that His has recorded, though only in a footnote, that the skulls which 

 combine tlie characters of his two best-defined types, the " Sion-Typus " to wit, 

 and the " Diseutis-Typus," in the " Mischform " Avhich he calls " bion-Disentis 

 Mischlinge," are the most capacious of the entire series of the " Crania Helvetica," 

 exceeding, not by their maximum onlj', but by their average capacity also, the 

 corresponding capacities of every one of the pure Swiss types *. Intercrossing, 

 therefore, is an agency which in one set of cases may operate in the way of 

 enhancing individual evolution, whilst in another it so divides its influence as to 

 allow of the maintenance of two types in their distinctness. Both these results are 

 of equal biological, the latter is of preeminent archreological interest. Retzius t 

 was of opinion, and, with a few qualifications, I tliiuk, more recent Swedish 

 Ethnologists would agree, that the modern dolichocephalic Swedisli cranium was 

 very closely affined to, if not an exact reproduction of the Swedish cranium of the 

 Stone Period ; and "S^irchow J holds that the modern brachycephalic Danish skull is 

 similarly related to the Danish skull of the same period. There can be no doubt 

 that the Swedish cranium is very closely similar indeed to the Anglo-Saxon ; and 

 tlie skulls which still conform to that type amongst us will be by most men supposed 

 to be the legitimate representatives of the followers of Hengest and Horsa, just as 

 the modern Swedes, wnose counti-y has been less subjected to disturbing agencies, 

 must be held to be the lineal descendants of the original occupiers of their soil. 

 I am inclined to think that the permanence of the brachycephalic stock and type 

 in Denmark has also its bearing upon the Ethnography of this country. In the 

 Eound-Barrow or Bronze Period in this country, sub-spheroidal crania (that is to 

 say, crania of a totally different shape and type from those which are found in 

 exclusive possession of the older and longer Barrows) are found in great abundance, 

 sometimes, as in the South, in exclusive possession of the sepulchre, sometimes iu 

 company, as in the North, with skulls of tlie older type. The skulls are often 

 strikingly like those of the same type from the Danish tumuli. On this coinci- 

 dence I should not stake much, were it not confirmed by other indications. And 

 foremost amongst these indications I should place the fact of the " Tree-interments," 

 as they have been called (interments, that is, in coffins made out of the trunk of a 

 tree), of this country, and of Denmark, being bo closely alike. The well-known 



Occid.' p. 2; 'Archiv fiir Anthrop.' v. p. 485, 1872). And real naturalists, such as 

 Mr. Bates, practised in the discrimination of zoological differences, express themselves 

 as struck rather with the amovmt of unlikeness than with that of likeness which prevails 

 amongst savage tribes of the greatest simplicity of life and the most entire freedom from 

 crossing with other races. But these observations relate to the living heads, not to the 

 skulls. 



* See Dr. Beddoe, Mem. Soc. Anth. Lond. iii. p. .552 ; Huth, p. 308, 1875 ; D. Wilson, 

 cit. Brace, ' Races of the Old M^orld,' p. 380 ; and His, ' Crania Helvetica.' 



t Ethnologische Schrifteu, p. 7. 



I Archiv fiir Anthropologic, iv. pp. 71 and 80. 



