ANCIENT AND MODERN CELT. 387 



tlie beautiful series of modern skulls in the museum, derived from 

 Brittany, and to my own collection of modern Irish skulls." In a 

 letter on the same subject, addressed by M. Pruner-Bey to Mr. C. C. 

 Blake, of the London Anthropological Society, he refers to " the ellip- 

 tic form (segmental) of the occiput as well as of the coronal as truly 

 characterising the Celtic type."* The crania selected by him as 

 typical Celtic skulls, measure, in centimetres, longitudinally and paries 

 tally as follows : • 



Helvetian, length, 19.5 ; breadth, 14.5. 



Irish No. 1, " 20.0; " 15.0. 



Irish No. 2, " 20.5; " 14.3. 

 The discussions originating in M. Pruner-Bey's observations on 

 what he finally designates "The long-headed Celt of Neander- 

 thal :" though they elicited opinions at variance with his ethnical 

 classification of the remarkable skull discovered in 1837 in the Nean- 

 derthal cave ; have not, so far as I am aware, led to any challenge of 

 the typical form thus asserted for the Celtic skull of France, as well 

 as of Switzerland and Ireland. 



It accordingly appears thus far, from the various authorities referred 

 to, that considerable unanimity prevails in the ascription of an excess 

 of longitudinal diameter as one of the most marked characteristics of 

 the Celtic cranium. A long but low frontal development, in which, 

 as M. Pruner-Bey defines it, "The forehead of the ancient Celt gains 

 in length what it loses in height ;"• a flattening of the parietals, and a 

 tendency towards occipital prolongation, are all more or less strongly 

 asserted as characteristic of the same head-form. There are markede 

 exceptions, however, to this apparent unanimity. Professor Nillson 

 — who, in his earlier definitions, had spoken of the Celtic cranium as 

 intermediate in proportions to the true dolichocephalic and brachyce- 

 phalic skull-forms, — when writing more recently to Dr TLuraam, re- 

 marks in reference to that cjranium : "I consider nothing more 

 uncertain and vague than this denomination ; for hardly two authors 

 have the same opinion in the matter. It would indeed be very de- 

 sirable if, in England, where it might most conveniently be done, one 

 could come to a proper understanding as to what constitutes the Celtic 

 form of cranium, and afterwards impressions in plaster-of-paris be taken 

 of such a cranium as might serve as^a type for this race."f The de- 



* Anthropological Review. Vol. II, p. 146. 

 \Crania Britannica, Dec. i., p. 17. 



