ON CAUSES PREVENTING SMOOTHNESS OF GROUND. 223 



headed skulls in a nation has been noticed before, suffi- 

 cient weight has not been given to this circumstance in 

 forming a cranial classification. Huxley, for example, 

 who divides the races of mankind into two groups, (a) the 

 Ulotrichi, or races with woolly hair, and (/3) the Leiotrichi, 

 or races with smooth hair, mentions incidentally that bra- 

 chycephalic and dolichocephalic people are met with in each 

 division; and in the four subdivisions of the Leiotrichi, 

 viz. the Australioid, the Mongoloid, the Xanthochroi, and 

 the Melanochroi, he states that the two forms are very 

 freely mingled ; yet he does not find any fault with the 

 system on this account, whereas it appears to me so im- 

 portant us to lead us to look to the philologist, rather 

 than to the anatomist, for a correct classification of the 

 human race. 



XXVII. On Causes preventing Smoothness of Ground. 

 By R. Angus Smith, Ph.D., F.R.S. 



Read October zyta, 1872. 



When in Iceland this year (1872) I spent many hours on 

 the small Island of Effersey, in the Bay of Reikjavik, and 

 had occasion to cross the island (only a few hundred yards) 

 several times. It was well covered with grass of a kind 

 not very fine ; but it was unlike any surface of grass I had 

 ever seen, although it appeared at a short distance not to 

 be a field of unusual character, with a few risings. 



It was studded over with small mounds that could be 

 compared only to children's graves in every dimension, 

 the spaces between being filled with grass. It was there- 

 fore very difficult to walk over the ground. Stepping from 



