NA TURE
586
headed race, with small features, whilst those from the roimd barrow were a tall, short- or round-headed race, There was with larger and more prominent faces. nothing new
statement that the skulls of the ancient Britons of the later or Bronze age were usually of rounded form the chief novelty was the fact deduced by Dr. Thuruam from his e.plorations in the primeval long barrows, that the skulls from that form of tumulus are of extreme length, such as now prevails only in far in this
distant lands, as for
example
in
India, Africa,
and
yus-
tralia.
Dr. Thurnam's general conclusions as to the skullforms from the barrows, were concisely expressed b' him " long barrows, long skulls round in the formula barrows, round skulls." This coincidence between the form of the barrow and the shape of the skulls which it contained, appeared to be so strange to some minds that they hesitated to give full weight to the statistics brought The unfavourable reception forward in support of it. which Dr. Thurnam's conclusions met with in certain quarters, however disagreeable to him at the time, can now only be a subject of congratulation, as it no doubt served as a spur to further investigation, the results of In the paper published which are tnost conclusive. in the Anthropological Memoirs of 1870, Dr. Thurnam was enabled to discuss the character of as many as sixtyseven skulls from the two classes of long barrows, no fewer than twenty-se-en of them being from simple barrows, although the first described skull from that class of tumulus The results of the was obtained so recently as 1S63.
—
measurements of these sixty-seven skulls, as contrasted with those deri-ed from seventy skulls from the round barrows, may readily be made ex'ident to those of our readers who are least acquainted with the technicalities of craniology. Skulls are now usually classed according to the form of the brain case, as " long," " short," and " intermediate," the limits of each class being accurately defined. Of these sixty-seven skulls from long barrows, then, it is found that eighty-two per cent, are technically long, and eighteen per cent, intermediate not one technically short or round. On the other hand, of the seventy round barrow skulls, eighty-three per cent, are short, and seventeen per cent, intermediate not one long. Bearing in mind that the archseological evidence has satisfactorily established the superior antiquity of the long as compared with the round barrows, the conclusions here arrived at, based as they are upon a wide induction of instances derived from one district and one class of monuments, are a clear gain to science, and are not for one moment to be compared with such hypotheses as that of a primitive short-headed population, founded by Retzius upon the examination of isolated crania from various parts of Europe. The question of the relation of the men of the long barrows to the existing people is one of great difficulty. It might seem natural to infer that the skulls recognised by some excellent observers, such as Dr. Beddoe, as Keltic skulls, are the modern representatives of the They seem to us, however, to ancient long heads. differ in many essential particulars, especially in the important element of height. Dr. Thurnam appears to have been impressed with certain historical evidence favourable to the notion of the Iberian origin of the long barrow people, and he has accordingly carefully studied the large series of Basque skulls in the museum of the Anthropological Society of Paris. The results of the comparison between the two classes of skulls do not, however, seem to go far towards supporting the Iberian theory. are inclined to think that Dr. Thurnam should have turned to the north rather than to the south of Europe for the representatives of the primitive longheaded population of Britain. He readily allows that certain skulls obtained from ancient cemeteries (graverows) in northern Germany closely resemble those of the long barrow folk, but he seems to have been deterred
We
{April
T,
1870
from following up the clue by the fact that these graverow skulls are of the iron period, and probably of post-
Roman date. Since the date of Dr. Thurnam's paper, however, skulls of the same long and high form have been found in Rheinhessen, in graves assigned by the eminent archaeologist Lindenschmidt to a date 500 years before Christ. Similar skulls have also been discovered in Bohemia with weapons of stone and bronze. We have devoted so much space to the archasological and craniological portion of Dr. Thurnam's paper, that we are unable to notice in detail the admirable way in which the physical facts observed are reviewed in the light of historical evidence. It must suffice to say that the men of the long barrows are identified with those " described by Ca;sar under the name of Intcriorcs Bri/dini!, as forming the aboriginal population," whilst those of the round barrows are inferred to be the Belga?, who, according to Ca;sar's account, passed over to Britain from the Continent, in immediately pre-Roman times, for the purpose of plunder and making war.
NOTES We
are glad to be able to state that energetic steps are
now
view the We believe that Mr. La.ssell, approaching Eclipse of the Sun. the President of the Royal Astronomical Society, will cull attention to the subject at the meeting of the society to-morrow being
taken
the matter
in
of the
Expedition
to
evening.
Mr. Lockyer,
on the Sun, delivered at showed an interesting experiment with a candle, which gives a good general idea of As the solar phenomena as observed by his new method. round the sun Mr. Lockyer can spectroscopically detect an ordinarily invisible hydrogen envelope which is rendered evident in his third lecture
the Royal Institution on Saturday last,
by bright lines only as contrasted with the nearly continuous spectrum given by the white light of the surface of the sun, so also there is an ordinarily unnoticed envelope (of sodium -apour) round a common candle flame which gives a bright line spectrum as contrasted with the continuous spectrum of the Mr. Lockyer also showed that some of the flame itself phenomena he has seen when watching a solar storm may be reproduced by disturbing a candle flame.
We have heard
so
much
recently of the long-delayed determi-
nation of Cambridge University to apply
itself in
earnest to the
cultivation of Natural Science, that the information contained in
the following paragraph must be a blow to those of
its
friends
—
was entering on a new course " The Syndicate appointed to consider the means of raising the necessary funds for establishing a Professor and Demonstrator of Experimental Physics, and for providing buildings and apparatus required for Jthat department of science, and other wants of the
who hoped
to see that
University, have
it
made
a report to the Senate, in 'hich they
have addressed a communication to the several colleges of the University, to inquire whether they would be willing, under proper safeguards for the due appropriation of any state that they
moneys which might be entrusted
to
the University, to
make
contributions from their corporate funds for the above-mentioned objects.
The answers
of the several colleges, except that of
which has not yet been received, have been fully They indicated such a want considered by the Syndicate. of concurrence in any proposal to raise contributions from of direct the corporate funds of colleges, by any kind taxation, that the Syndicate felt obliged to abandon the notion of obtaining the necessary funds from this source, and accordingly to limit the number of objects which they should King's,
recommend attention,
the
Senate to accomplish.
therefore,
to
the
means of
They raising
confined their sufficient
funds
