They were essentially a theological and metaphysical race ; 
bore trouble badly ; not witty, but humorous ; cautious, with 
but little general taste, and a couruge allied to obsti- 
nacy; not externally demonstrative, and more suspicious 
and jealous than the Celts. They made the best sailors, 
and had a great natural taste for music. The fifth 
race described was the Saxon, distinct from the Anglo- 
Saxon, and often improperly taken as the John Bull, or 
type of an Englishman. Specimens of this race were to be 
met with in Berkshire and some parts of Gloucestershire and 
Hampshire, also occasionally in Bristol, which was essentially 
a Celtic city. The physical characteristics of these English 
farmers were too well "known to need much description, and 
their mental peculiarities were especially a sound common 
sense, great perseverance, a love of order, and little desire 
for change, a genial nature, equanimity in bearing losses, 
and no taste for theology or metaphysics. The author then 
observed that, had England been left to these races alone, 
she would never have been great, as these races would not 
have combined and worked together, but rather quarrelled 
and destroyed each other ; and it was to a race probably 
superior to all the preceding, namely, the Norse, or Scandi- 
navian, that the binding together, as it were, of all 
these races, for one common object, was due, It was found 
more or less in Devonshire, and in Scotland and the North 
of England there was a substratum of Cimbric, overlaid by 
Norse. This race, with more than a mediocrity of talent in 
many points, and a deficiency in none, employed each of the 
other races in the way in which their special characteristics 
were most available — thus the Celts for soldiers, the Cimbri 
for sailors and work requiring great manual strength, &c. 
As a race, they were very firm and decided, possessing in 
theological views an union of the Welsh and Scotch ; it was 
to them that the establishment of colonies was mainly 
due. Mr. Davis then said that there were undoubtedly a 
few other varieties of races, as some remnants of the 
Romans, to be found among pugilists, who were a 
mixture of Saxons and Romans and others. He con- 
cluded by expressing his opinion that there was no real 
inferiority or superiority of race, each having its own end tc) 
accomplish, and by acknowledging his obligations to Dr. 
Beddoe, whose opinion he frequently referred to in the 
course of the paper, and whose advice and assistance he at all 
times found most valuable. 
A. short discussion ensued, in the course of which Dr. 
Beddoe expressed his satisfaction that a Welshman 
had at last taken up the subject of ethnology systema- 
tically, Mr. Davis being, he believed, the first native 
of the principality who had done so. The Welsh 
race was incomprehensible to the inhabitants of 
England, and also unable to give a good account of itself; 
he considered Mr. Davis quite competent to follow up the 
ethnology of Wales. Tacitus, 1800 years ago, had noticed 
that the inhabitants of South Wales reminded him of 
Spaniards, and Dr. Beddoe considered that the present great 
physical resemblance went some way to prove the perma- 
nence of type. With respect to the question which was the 
theological race in Scotland, the speaker was disposed to 
consider the inhabitants of the Western Lowlands as such. 
There were records of the Cimbric race in that part of the 
country, of whose extirpation there was no evidence, and he 
had a personal knowledge of the existence of that type there. 
Mr. T. Grundy exhibited a very large hedgehog, recently 
caught in the neighbourhood, and several remarks were 
made upon its habits by various members. Mr. Grundy 
also showed as a curiosity from Veutnor, Isle of Wight, an 
old knife, surrounded by pebbly conglomerate. The presi- 
dent observed that it was a good illustration of ferruginous 
infiltration, and an example occurring in the knowledge of 
man of a process which went on for long geological periods, 
and of which many other examples were given in Sir Charles 
Lyell's geological works. 
The meeting adjourned on receiving the announcement 
that Mr. Handel Cossham's paper would be read at a future 
meeting, pnblic engagements having prevented the author 
jfrotu fulfilling hia promise that eveniog. 
WM. LANT CARPENTER, 
