January 22, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



85 



stances in particular the examples he has noted of 

 the oblique or Chinese eye, and of prognathism, or 

 prominence of the jaws. The latter peculiarity, 

 by itself, would not be of much value if it were 

 not for the great similarity in other respects that 

 exists among the individuals in whom it is mani- 

 fested. But prognathism by no means implies a 

 low type of humanity, and it is remarked by our 

 author that eloquence, or at least readiness of 

 speech, seems to be a general characteristic of it. 



For the neolithic period, while accepting in a 

 broad way Thurnam's formula, « Long barrows, 

 long heads ; round barrows, round heads,' Dr. 

 Bed doe cannot allow that this represents accu- 

 rately the character of the entire population. He 

 believes that the distinctive practice of dolmen- 

 building was established in Britain by a pure long- 

 headed race, while the broad- headed people were 

 the introducers of bronze. " Whencesoever they 

 came, the men of the British bronze race were 

 richly endowed physically. They were, as a rule, 

 tall and stalwart ; their brains were large, and 

 their features, if somewhat harsh and coarse, 

 must have been manly and commanding." It has 

 been objected to this type, that the great develop- 

 ment of the brows, and the transverse furrow on 

 the forehead above, are shared by the Australian 

 and other savage races. But it is well established 

 that such points of likeness as these to the anthro- 

 poid apes are distributed variously among the 

 different races of mankind, and that no one of 

 them, taken by itself, implies intellectual or moral 

 inferiority. "Certainly," says Dr. Beddoe, "the 

 British bronze type is found frequently — I should 

 say with disproportionate frequency — among 

 our best as well as our ablest and strongest men." 



But at the bronze period the mass of the popula- 

 tion cannot be regarded as belonging to this type. 

 Their skulls present a shape intermediate between 

 those of the long barrows, and those of the round 

 barrows, — a form for which Wilson has proposed 

 the name of 'pear-shaped,' and our author the 

 one, not very satisfactory to himself, of ' coffin- 

 shaped.' This type may be the result of a partial 

 fusion of the two races, or it may have been im- 

 ported, already made, by the very numerous 

 invaders from Belgic Gaul. It has usually been 

 styled the Keltic type, but Broca thinks that the 

 name of Kelt ought to be restricted to the race 

 that predominated in old Keltic Gaul, from 

 Bretagne to Savoy. Their short, thick-set figures, 

 and large, broad heads, are very different from the 

 ancient British type, whose general distribution 

 throughout the three kingdoms tells strongly 

 against its being a late importation. 



Such was the population of Britain at the time 

 of the Roman conquest, composed of several strata, 



unequally distributed, of a Keltic-speaking race, 

 some Bryothonic, others Gaelic, in dialect. This 

 ancient British race belonged to the tall, blond 

 stock of northern Europe, rather than to Broca's 

 Keltic race ; and they probably greatly resembled 

 in appearance the provincials carved upon the 

 sarcophagus of the Roman prefect Jovinus, — 

 now preserved in the Museum of the Hotel de 

 Ville, at Reims, — who are conspicuously different 

 in features from the modern Germans. This race 

 was superposed upon a foundation principally 

 made up of the dolichocephalic dark race of 

 southern Europe, the so-called Iberian, which is 

 still strongly represented in the north of Scotland 

 and in Ireland ; but no Germans, to be recognized 

 as such by speech as well as person, had probably 

 as yet entered Britain. 



The Roman conquest, however, had no material 

 effect in changing the character of the population. 

 Far different was it with the Anglo-Saxon inva- 

 sions that followed upon its abandonment by the 

 Romans. The most important chapter in the 

 volume is naturally devoted to a careful review of 

 the various theories as to the origin of the dif- 

 ferent invading tribes, and to a thorough study of 

 the evidence of all kinds that might tend to shed 

 light upon the process of ' the making of Eng- 

 land,' — ethnological and linguistic, as well as that 

 derived from laws and social institutions. We 

 have space to touch, and that only in the briefest 

 manner, upon one or two of the points discussed. 



Our author's researches are quite in accord with 

 the conclusions reached by Senator Hoar in a 

 paper read last spring before the American anti- 

 quarian society, in regard to the origin of the 

 Yankee of caricature, the typical Uncle Sam, and 

 Brother Jonathan, ' ' with his long, loosely-set limbs, 

 his sharp nose and chin, his high cheek-bones, his 

 narrow shoulders and high head." Dr. Beddoe 

 paints this Yankee portrait to the life, when he is 

 describing the true Frisian type, to be seen in the 

 people dwelling around the Zuyder Zee, who are 

 very different in their appearance from their 

 neighbors the Hollanders. He proves that dif- 

 ferences existed, physical as well as dialectic, be- 

 tween the ancient Frisians and the Saxons ; and 

 he shows that the county of Kent was the first to 

 be invaded by the Frisians and their neighbors 

 the Jutes. So the main object of Senator Hoar's 

 paper is to show the obligations of New England 

 to Kent for much of its laws and social institu- 

 tions, and the strong physical resemblance of the 

 people of the two regions. Dr. Beddoe also brings 

 out the notable likeness between the people of 

 Boston, in Lincolnshire, and the frequenters of 

 the Antwerp market. In no considerable town in 

 England is the index of nigrescence so low. In one 



