14 Mr Cull on the recent Progress of Ethnology, 



the vowel sounds, the elisions, and the construction of sen- 

 tences, the Yorkshire dialects offer interesting analogies to 

 the old English of Shakspeare and Chaucer, the Anglo-Saxon 

 of the Chronicle, and the Norse, as it is preserved to us by 

 the Icelanders." 



Professor Phillips furnishes us with philological materials 

 for the study of the East Yorkshire dialect, and says, — 

 " Investigations of this kind (philological) must not be limited 

 to Yorkshire, for even our dialectic peculiarities spread 

 southward into Derbyshire, westward into Cumberland, and 

 northward to the foot of the Grampians. Though several 

 dialects, or varieties of dialects, exist in Yorkshire, they 

 appear not so different from each other when heard, as when 

 looked at in the disguise of arbitrary spelling." This work 

 of Professor Phillips must be regarded as a valuable contri- 

 bution to the Ethnology of England ; and it is to be hoped 

 that others as well qualified will supply us with the ethnolo- 

 gical details of their own localities. 



Our science is indebted to John Grattan, Esq., of Belfast, for 

 obtaining certain ancient Irish crania from the round towers 

 and other places, for carefully preserving them and bringing 

 them under the notice of the Ethnologists at the Belfast 

 meeting of the British Association last year. It is not easy 

 to overrate the importance to our science of the study of 

 crania, both ancient and modern. Mr Grattan ably classed 

 his crania in four well-defined chronological groups, viz. : — 



1. The Prehistoric, 



2. The remote historic, 



3. The Anglo-Irish, and 



4. The Modern periods. 



Mr Grattan modestly said, — " To attempt to generalize upon 

 such imperfect data would be rash and presumptuous in the 

 extreme. Let us hope, however, that, by'calling public atten- 

 tion to the value of such specimens, we may be but laying 

 the foundation of a collection, which, one day more extended 

 and in better qualified hands, shall do good service to science. 

 They however illustrate one fact, which bears importantly 

 upon the question of races, viz. the tenacity with which dif- 



