404 ETHNICAL FORMS AND UNDESIGNED ARTIFICIAL 



mode of nurture in infancy. That event mainly prevented the pub- 

 lication of the views I had formed on this subject, earlier as well as 

 in a more ample form, from the consequent interruption of researches 

 then in progress, relative to the physical conformation of early 

 British races. The delay, however, has furnished me with novel 

 illustrations on this and other points relating to physical ethnology, 

 derived from corresponding phenomena in the crania of the New 

 World. 



So remarkable a change has taken place during the interval, 

 that it is now difficult to realize such a condition of things 

 as prevailed when Sir Richard Colt Hoare, one of the most intelligent 

 and zealous of British antiquaries, explored the sepulchral mounds 

 of "Wiltshire, and recovered from them a host of illustrations of 

 primitive arts and customs, but systematically rejected evidence of 

 the physical characteristics of the artists by whose skill such ob- 

 jects had been wrought. Nothing could more strikingly illustrate 

 this than the contrast presented between the '■^Ancient Wiltshire,'* 

 otherwise so rich in its stores of archaeological information ; and the 

 ** Ten Years' Diggings in Celtic and Saxon Grave Hills," which 

 records the results of researches closely analogous to those of 

 Sir B. C. Hoare, carried on by the late Mr. Thomas Bateman, in 

 cooperation with two zealous fellow-labourers, in Derby, Stafford, 

 and York-shires, from 1848 to 1858. The Wiltshire Antiquary, 

 with commendable reverence, restored the bones to the ravished se- 

 pulchre, from whence it never occurred to him that they would be 

 again recovered, as furnishing evidence of greater significance to the 

 scientific student than the pottery and implements which he pre- 

 served. Under the influence of the change in the appreciation of 

 such evidence, his Derbyshire follower claims a special value for in- 

 formation derived by him from the systematic opening of upwards 

 of four hundred tumuli, because it embodies the results of his ex- 

 humation of such a collection of ancient crania as no future writer 

 is likely to have access to. 



The result of my own examination of such ancient Scottish crania 

 as were accessible at the period when my researches were interrupted, 

 along with imperfect references to other explorations and dis- 

 closures, was to impress me with the conviction that the evidence 

 pointed to the existence of more than one early race, and that traces 

 seemed to be recognizable, suggestive of one characterised by great 



