225 



THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF YORKSHIRE. 



C. STANILAND WAKE, M.A.I., 

 Welton, near Brougk, East Yorkshire. 



In a work dedicated to Rudolf Virchow and Paul Topinard, two 

 living masters in Anthropology, and to the memory of the late 

 Paul Broca and Joseph Barnard Davis, Dr. John Beddoe has 

 recently published the results of upwards- of thirty years' laborious 

 leisure devoted to the 'application of the numerical and inductive 

 method to the ethnology of Britain and of Western Europe.' The 

 work in question ('The Races of Britain: a Contribution to the 

 Anthropology of Western Europe.' By John Beddoe, M.D., F.R.S., 

 &c. 1885. Triibner & Co.) is to a great extent, as the author informs 

 us, an extension of a manuscript essay which, in 1868, carried off 

 the great prize of the Welsh National Eisteddfod. The observations 

 on which the conclusions of that essay were based have, however, 

 since been largely added to, and those relating purely to stature and 

 bulk formed a valuable contribution to the third volume of the Memoirs 

 of the Anthropological Society of London, published in 1870. The 

 method of investigation pursued by Dr. Beddoe is now universally 

 recognised as one which gives most important results, and as he states 

 that his observations are not likely to be increased, I propose to 

 embody the conclusions arrived at, so far as they relate to Yorkshire, 

 in the present paper, for the information of the members of the 

 Yorkshire Naturalists' Union. 



First, as to Dr. Beddoe's method. The uncertainty which 

 existed as to the external physical characters of the British and 

 other European peoples having forcibly struck him, Dr. Beddoe 

 determined to begin 'systematic numerical observations' on the 

 colours of hair and eyes. The first step was to establish a scale of 

 colour which would be generally applicable, and finally he arranged 

 all eyes into three classes, distinguished by shade as much as by 

 colour, light, intermediate or ?ientral, and dark. To the first class 

 were assigned all blue, bluish-gray, and light-gray eyes ; to the third 

 class, the so-called black eyes, and those usually described as brown 

 and dark hazel. In the second or neutral division, Dr. Beddoe in- 

 cluded dark grey, brownish gray, very light hazel, or yellow-hazel 

 gray, formed by streaks of orange radiating into a bluish-gray field, 

 and most shades of green, together with all the eyes of whose colour 

 he remained uncertain after an ordinarily close inspection. Each 

 class of eyes was sub-divided into five, in accordance with the arrange- 

 ment of hair-colour. Thus, Class R includes hair of all shades which 



Aug. 1886. Q 



