390 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 



differences between the English dragoon, the Highland sergeant, and 

 the Irish private, are as obvious as the distinctive features q( the 

 Negro who mingles in the same jovial group. M. D'Halloy excludes 

 the region of Brittany from the France assigned by him to its branch of 

 the Latin Family. But even the retention of the Celtic language is 

 BO certain test of purity of race ; and it is more easy to imagine, than 

 to estimate by any definite scale, the influence which Roman, Frank, 

 Burgundian, Saxon, Dane, Norman, and other foreign blood, have 

 exercised in effecting the diversities referred to. Taking, however, 

 crania derived from Highland districts where the Gaelic language still 

 prevails, and from cemeteries of the earliest Columbian and Pictish 

 Christian foundations, we have some reason to anticipate in them an 

 approximation to the true form of the Celtic head subsequent to the 

 Roman invasion. The following table embraces such a selection, illus- 

 trating the character of the native population in different parts of the 

 British Islands, at a period when the first Celtic missionaries of Scot- 

 land and Ireland were preaching to their converts in their native 

 tongue.* The measurements are Longitudinal diameter. Frontal 

 breadth, Parietal breadth, and Horizontal circumference. 



BRITISH CELTIC CRANIA. 



* For additional measurements, and the circumstances of discovery justifying 

 their Celtic classification, vide Prehist. ^finals of Scotlandf 2ix6. edit., vol. I.,, 

 p. 284. 



