ANCIENT AND MODERN GELT. 385 



ethnography of the country, states that his deductions relative to the 

 physical characteristics of the Scottish population are based on obser- 

 vations made upon about 20,000 individuals. The complexional char- 

 acter chiefly attracted his attention ; but other features were not over- 

 looked. Of the people of Upper Argyleshire and Invernesshire he 

 remarks : " The men have the bony frames, the high cheek bones, 

 prominent brows, and long noses, aquiline, sinuous, or curved upwards 

 towards the point, which I have observed in almost all the more Celtic 

 districts of Scotland ;" and he thus indicates the idea he has formed 

 of the Celtic head-form, when referring to the fisher-folk of Buck- 

 haven, St. Monance, Newhaven, and Fisherow : " The narrowness of 

 the crania and faces in many of the women tells against their Teutonic 

 origin, and the family names of the Newhaven and Fisherow folk are 

 just those of the neighbouring counties; some of them indeed, as 

 Caird and Gilchrist, are Gaelic."* 



The zeal with which anthropological researches are pursued by the 

 savants of Paris, renders their opinion on this department of ethnical 

 classification, in which they have so peculiar an interest, of the highest 

 value. Unfortunately my access to their published results is greatly 

 more limited than I could desire, though perhaps sufficient for the 

 purpose now in view. M. J. J. D'Omahus D'Halloy^ remarks in his 

 Bes Races Humaines, " It is difficult in the present state of the 

 science to express any positive opinion as to the true characteristics 

 and the actual development of the Celtic Family;" and after referring 

 to the wide area occupied by it in ancient times, and its later inter- 

 mixture everywhere with encroaching races of conquerors, he adds : 

 '" It is probable that the peoples who still speak the Celtic languages 

 are not the pure descendants of the ancient Celts, but that they have 

 resulted from an admixture with the Arameans whom we suppose to 

 have been their precursors in (central Europe, and with the Latins 

 and Teutons, who intruded subsequently. Moreover their character- 

 istics are not uniform ; and whilst, for example, the Bas-Bretons have 

 in general their hair and their eyes black, and the stature of the 

 inhabitants of the south west of France, we frequently meet with 

 blond complexions among the Gauls."t Among the scientific anthro- 

 pologists of Paris, however, the same idea, already referred to, of the 

 elongated skull being the true Celtic type, appears to maintain its 



* Proceedings of Soc. Antiq. of Scotland^ Vol. I, pp. 254, 256. 

 t Des Races Humaines, ou Elements d'Ethnographie, p. 37. 

 Vol. IX. 2a 



