402 PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 



subsidiary source of information, the population of Lower Canada fur- 

 nishes materials valuable alike to the ethnologist and the historian. 

 There a people of French origin has been isolated from the great reTO- 

 lutions which have wrought such changes on their European congen- 

 ers. Their physical, moral and intellectual development, all admit of 

 curious comparison with those of the modern Frenchman. The first 

 has been subjected to novel climatic influences for upwards of two 

 centuries ; the latter have been moulded by political and religious in- 

 stitutions, brought with them from their old home by the colonists'of 

 Louis XIII. ; whose descendants have only recently emancipated 

 themselves from seignorial tenures and other shackles of a feudal sys- 

 tem of centralization. Those, with the habits of life incident to a 

 climate so diverse from that of northern France, may account for some 

 characteristic traits. Others may be still found among the kindred 

 population of Normandy or Brittany. But, assuredly the summary 

 way in which Dr. Knox has dealt with this element of the European 

 population of the New World, as " The French Celts of the Regency," 

 is wholly unworthy of acceptance.* 



Apart, however, from all theory or inductive reasoning, the follow- 

 ing facts appear to be indicated in reference to the colonists of Lower 

 Canada: 1st. That the French Canadian head- forms are, as a rule, shor- 

 ter and relatively broader than the British ; 2nd. That the former are 

 divisible into two classes, of which the short globular, or brachy ce- 

 phalic head occurs chiefly in the Quebec district, settled from Nor- 

 mandy ;t while the longer type of head predominates in the Montreal 

 district, originally colonised by a population chiefly derived from 

 Brittany and the Department of Charente Inferieure. The mode of 

 investigation thus indicated yields certain definite results, and admits 

 of wide application. Should the anthropologists of Paris be induced 

 to turn their attention to it, the means of comparison supplied by a 

 similar determination of the head-forms of regiments composed of 

 conscripts from Bretagne, Normandie, Franche Compte, Languedoc, 

 and Gascoigne^ might go far towards eliminating the true Gaulish 



* Races of Men : p. 75. 



fin the summer of 1863, immediately after examining the Canadian head- 

 forms of the Quebec district, I made a tour through Normandy, and specially 

 directed my attention to the head forms of the peasantry. A short form of head 

 appears to prevail ; but without positive measurement no precise results can be 

 attained. 



