432 ETHNICAL FORMS AND UNDESIGNED ARTIFICIAL 



type. Whether they belonged to Pagan Celts prior to the sixth cen- 

 tury or Christian Celts of the eighth, could not affect their value for the 

 object in view. One Celtic skull, presented to me as from Harris, 

 in the Hebrides, was subsequently found to have been from Harray, 

 in Wales. I am unaware of any other error that can justify the 

 " serious question of the authenticity of some of the series " pro- 

 duced by further inquiry ; though well aware of the nature of the 

 inquiry, as I had promptly responded to Dr. Thurnam's application, 

 soon after the publication of my Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, for 

 an opportunity of inspecting the crania referred to, I accordingly 

 sent him those in my own collection and under my control, and ex- 

 erted myself in procuring the transmission of others, with the requi- 

 site documents ; a courtesy which I have found him equally ready to 

 return. One of the documents transmitted with the skulls from the 

 Phrenological collection consisted of the letter from Mr. Donald 

 Gregory to Mr. Eobert Cox, W. S. of the Edinburgh Phrenological 

 Society, dated 11th September, 1833, accompanying the " Druid " 

 skulls, and ran a3 follows : — 



" Along with this you will receive six ancient skulls* procured under the fol- 

 lowing circumstances : There is a place here called Cladh na Bruineach, i.e., the 

 burial place of the Druids, in which I have caused some deep cuts to be made. 

 An incredible quantity of human bones has been found ; and as it is perfectly 

 certain that this place has never been used as a Christian church-yard, or as a 

 place of interment at all, since the establishment of Christianity here by St. 

 Oolumba, there can be no doubt of the antiquity of the skulls now sent. They 

 are by every one here firmly believed to be the skulls of the Druids, who were 

 probably interred here from distant parts as well as from the neighbourhood, on 

 account of the sanctity of the island, which formerly bore the name of Innis na 

 Druineach, cr the Druid's Isle. 



" The six skulls herewith sent were selected with care by myself, from a much 

 larger number. One you will observe is higher in the forehead than the rest. 

 But this is an exception ; for I am satisfied, — and others whose attention I di- 

 rected to the matter agree with me, — that the general character of the skulls is 

 a low forehead, a considerable breadth in the upper and posterior part of the 

 head, which you will no doubt readily perceive. Although, with the exception 

 mentioned, those skulls have the same general character, (as far as I can judge,) 

 yet there are sufficient differences in the individuals to make them of consider- 

 able interest to the phrenologist. I must not omit to mention that the present 

 race in the island appear to have much better foreheads than the Druids, and in 



* One of them existed only in fragments in the Phrenological Museum at the period when 

 I examined the other five. 



