288 RACE HKAD-FOR'MS AND THKIR 



now accepted by many French and English anthropologists as a charac- 

 teristic feature of the true Celtic head-form. 



Assuming the race assigned to the Parisian Crania to be, correct, the 

 idea thus indicated finds some apparent confirmation from the measure- 

 ments now produced. Derived as those are stated to have been, from 

 the Catacombs of Paris, -they might indeed, if selected from among the 

 contents of that vast charnel-house as characteristic of the prevailing 

 form to be found there, be fairly assumed as representing the typical 

 French head. But as iHustrations of the Graulish or French-Celtic 

 head-form, as contra-distinguished from Iberian, Burgundian, Prankish, 

 Norse, or other type, their value depends wholly on the grounds of 

 selection. But of these, unfortunately, we have no record ] and can 

 only surmise that Dr. Spurzheim had already satisfied himself that the 

 long skull, with narrow frontal region, was the true Celtic one. Cer- 

 tain it is that some such preconceived idea must have guided him when 

 selecting crania from the great Parisian golgotha, in order that his 

 Scottish disciple might gratify his natural predilections, while devoting 

 himself to the mastery of the laws of mental idiosyncracy as indicated 

 in the development of assumed cerebral organs, and the consequent 

 modification of the osseous brain-case. Nor can we wisely allow the 

 rejection of his favourite dogmas to prejudice us against the purely 

 craniological observations of one whose opportunities were only equalled 

 by his diligence in the study of individual and ethnical diversities. 



Dr. Johann Gaspar Spurzheim studied in the University of Treves, 

 near to which he was born, pursued his medical studies and graduated 

 at Vienna, lectured in different cities of Germany, Prussia, Denmark, 

 France and England; revisited Paris, and resided as a lecturer there 

 from 1817 to 1825, when he returned to Britain. All the events of 

 his age were calculated to suggest more strongly to his mind the exist- 

 ence of essential ethnical differences between the true German and the 

 descendant of the ancient Celt of Gaul; but nothing in his peculiar 

 views as a phrenologist tended to bias his opinions in favor of a long, 

 rather than a short Celtic head-form. 



But, strangely enough, after the lapse of more than half a century, 

 the right of property in this idea of long-headed Celts, with other 

 questions of a kindred type, has been brought into Chancery, and 

 adjudicated upon in that high court of appeal : with results in which 

 we may perhaps be allowed to claim some interest. In 1866 there 

 isssued from the press of Messrs. Longman & Co., the well-known 



