13 



Notes Explanatory of the Schedules. 



By E. Sidney Hartland, F.S.A., Secretary of the Committee. 



The object of the Committee is to obtain a collection of authentic 

 information relative to the population of the British Islands, with a view 

 to determine as far as possible the racial elements of which it is composed. 

 The high interest of the inquiry for all archaeologists need not be here 

 insisted on. A satisfactory solution of the problems involved will mean 

 the re-writing of much of our early history ; and even if we can only gain 

 a partial insight into the real facts it will enable us to correct or to con- 

 firm many of the guesses in which historians have indulged upon data of 

 a very meagre and often delusive character. 



The methods it is proposed to adopt have regard to the physical 

 peculiarities of the inhabitants, their mental idiosyncrasies, the material 

 remains of their ancient culture, and their external history. In modern 

 times great movements of population have taken place, the developments 

 of industry and commerce have brought together into large centres 

 natives of all parts of the country, and even foreigners, and thereby 

 I caused the mingling of many elements previously disparate. These have 

 j enormously complicated the difficulties of the inquiry. They have 

 I rendered many districts unsuitable for every purpose except the record of 

 j material remains. Scattered up and down the country, however, there 

 I are hamlets and retired places where the population has remained 

 J stationary and affected but little by the currents that have obliterated 

 j their neighbours' landmarks. To such districts as these it is proposed to 

 ' direct attention. Where families have dwelt in the same village from 

 father to son as far back as their ancestry can be traced, where the modes 

 of life have diverged the least from those of ancient days, where pastoral 

 and agricultural occupations have been the mainstay of a scanty folk 

 from time immemorial, where custom and prejudice and superstition have 

 held men bound in chains which all the restlessness of the nineteenth 

 century has not yet completely severed, there we hope still to find sure- 

 traces of the past. 



The photographic survey, which has been carried out so well at 

 Birmingham and elsewhere, and has been initiated in our own country, 

 will prove a most valuable aid to the wider work of the Ethnographical 

 | Survey. Photographs of the material remains of ancient culture are 

 | explicitly asked for in the schedule. In addition to them, photographs of 

 j typical inhabitants are urgently desired. Some judgment will, of course, 

 I require to be exercised in the selection of types, and a considerable 

 | amount of tact in inducing the subjects to allow themselves to be taken. 



It has been found effective for this purpose, as well as for that of 

 J measuring the people, that two persons should go out together, and 

 j setting up the camera in the village, or wherever they find a convenient 

 i spot, coram populo, they should then proceed gravely to measure and 

 ) photograph one another. This will be found to interest the villagers, 

 j and some of them will gradually be persuaded to submit to the operation. 

 A little geniality, and sometimes a mere tangible gratification of a trifling 

 character, will hardly ever fail in accomplishing the object. The expe 

 rience of observers who have taken measurements is that it becomes 



