from the stone-weaponed victims of the war. The examples of modern savage life, to say nothing of Greece and Rome, show that in closely allied tribes, actually of the same blood, the possession of new deathdealing arms obtained from European traders by the tribes more favourably placed for sea-borne commerce has been followed by the conquest and almost extermination of the tribes of the same race not possessed of those formidable equipments. Or what is to assure us that the presence of bronze implements in the sepulchral barrows of Britain is not an indication of a gradual progress in civilization, of new ideas, new acquirements, gradually introduced by peaceful commercial intercourse with the shores of Gaul, if not by the famous, if doubtful, keels of Tyre or Carthage? Assuming, however, that the bronze-using peoples of the sepulchral barrows were a different race from those who possessed only implements of stone, and of a later date in Europe than the latter, the archæologists have considered that this bronze-using race must have been that of the Celts; and these M. Broca calls the Celts of archæology. This application of the term differs only from that employed by the philologists in this, that while the philological Celts are confined to the west of Europe, those of archæology have been followed step by step into regions much more closely approximating to the supposed original home of the race in Asia.

But, as we have before observed, no evidence of a difference of race between the stone and bronze using peoples has yet been produced; and this we have to look for, and, according to M. Broca and other eminent ethnologists, we shall find by aid of craniology. This portion of the question has been very ably investigated by many of our countrymen, and, amongst others, by our eminent colleague Dr. Thurnam, who, in an admirable essay lately published in the Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London, has not only enunciated his own views with remarkable force and clearness, but has enabled us to appreciate all the bearings of the question as viewed in different lights by the most distinguished ethnologists of Europe. We must refer the reader to the essay itself for the full development of the argument, and will content ourselves for the present with a brief recapitulation of the points bearing on the subject now before Dr. Thurnam maintains that the crania obtained from the megalithic barrows of the stone age in Britain differ from the crania obtained from the sepulchres of the bronze-using people of the same country by characters amounting to evidence of a difference in race-the crania of the stone period being dolichocephalic, those of the bronze period brachycephalic. That the brachycephalic skull-form of the bronze period in Britain was introduced into this island from Gaul, and was the type of the Celtic skull-at least, that of the dominant race-Dr. Thurnam considers to be

us.

proved. "There are," he says, "two distinct cranial types from the

barrows, one, at least, of which must be Celtic. To assume that both are Celtic can scarcely be reconciled with the idea of permanence of type (if such be admitted) or with that of ethnic unity. The brachycephalic and sub-brachycephalic skulls from the round barrows must be regarded as those of the bronze-using Celts, and the dolichocephalic skulls from the chambered long barrows as those of a pre-Celtic stone-using people. Such seems to have been the order of succession of these two races in Britain, and such, it is believed, was also the order of their succession in Gaul." With regard to the origin and affinities of this pre-Celtic people, Dr. Thurnam suggests that "altogether the doctrine of an Iberian or IberoPhoenician origin of a very early, perhaps the earliest, population of at least part of Britain, though not as yet proved, derives much additional weight from the comparison here instituted of the skulls of the British dolichocephali of the stone period with those of the Basques." We purposely pass over all the debateable points in Dr. Thurnam's argument, and his conflict of opinion with many eminent English and Continental ethnologists on this very point of the priority in time of the dolichocephalous race in Europe, in order to come to the question with which we are now more particularly concerned. That the order of succession of these races in Northern Britain should be the reverse of that which prevails for the neighbouring Scandinavia is sufficiently embarrassing, but that the same retroversion of this order should exist between South-western Britain and North-western Gaul is more embarrassing still. It is true that some of the Northern ethnologists are beginning to cast doubt on the authority of Retzius on this subject, and to declare that the men of the stone age in Scandinavia were, like those of Britain, dolichocephalic.

But, setting aside for the moment the consideration of these difficulties, and granting, as perhaps we may, that, so far as the sepulchral tumuli inform us, the introduction of bronze into Britain was synchronous with the introduction of the brachycephalous race, and that these are a different race from the men of the stone period, how does craniology show that the former were Celts? Dr. Thurnam argues that "if the conical and bell-shaped barrows of South Wilts and Dorset, and especially those of the great Stonehenge necropolis, in the centre of the region of the Belgae of Ptolemy, be not those of the very people who fought against the legions under Plautus and Vespasian, then we must conclude that their tombs are yet to seek." But here, in addition to the fact that no two persons can be found to agree on the type of the Celtic skull, we get confronted with one of those time questions, one of those chronological difficulties which appear to be, and to be likely to remain, irresolvable and insuperable-Does the intro

duction of bronze into Britain date from a period so comparatively modern that its introduction can be attributed to the historical Celts?

Every result of recent investigation tends to throw back the commencement of the stone period—that is, the first dawn of human conquest over nature—to a period incalculably remote. Are we to bring down its termination to a date appreciable by the chronometer of history? For Dr. Thurnam's craniological Celts-that is, the brachycephalous bronze-using race of Britain-are the Celts of history; and M. Broca's ingenious distinctions are reduced to the condition of distinctions without a difference. It appears to us, moreover, that the Celts of craniology are precisely the Celts of archæology, whose origin is hidden in the obscurity of a remote antiquity, and that the only Celts who stand forth with a real substantial self-existence, capable of being connected with other cognate races, are the Celts of philology, for of them, at least, we know the Indo-European, or, if it be preferred, the Asiatic affinities.

But this knowledge does not suffice to enable us to answer M. Broca's question in the sense in which he puts it. The whole question of the relation of race to language remains as open as before. A race, it is said, may borrow a language, or take it like the small-pox, by inoculation or by contagion, or have it thrust upon it like a creed--at the point of the sword. M. Broca's own views on this matter seem to partake of a mixture of the inoculation and sword-point theories. M. Broca's writings are, however, always pleasant to read and profitable to ponder, and we hope shortly to return to a consideration of some of the many deeply interesting questions on which he has expressed his always valuable opinion.

D. W. N.

ON THE MYTHIC ASPECTS OF ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL
CHRONOLOGY.
No. II.

(Continued from page 211.)

In a previous paper I have briefly set forth a few of the more important facts in the history of zodiacal symbolism as revealed by mythonomical research; but some further elucidations are still necessary before we can advantageously enter upon the immediate subject of this inquiry.

As already observed, the two fundamental ideas which underlie all mythic formations, in the technical sense in which the term is here under

stood, are the natural year and an imaginary cycle, or great year, which always adopts the divisions and symbolism of the ordinary year; and, as these have greatly varied at different epochs, we find a similar variety in the events and adjustments of the cycle.

Of these two leading ideas the first is rarely, if ever, to be reached otherwise than by inference; it forms no part of the external imagery of a fable but the second is often a prominent portion of this imagery, espe cially in many forms of the cosmical and national myths. In a great variety of fables, however, neither cycle nor year are at all alluded to, nor could the zodiacal bearings of these fables have ever been suspected by any one not previously acquainted with the leading deductions of the new science. To the mythonomist, however, they yield their meaning as readily as any other portion of his materials: first, from the mere peculiarity of their structure; secondly, from the fact that their imagery and personages are often familiar to him in other combinations; and, thirdly, because, even when this is not the case, they present to him images which directly reveal zodiacal meanings. Hence he often picks out of an ordi nary fairy-tale a beautiful and perfectly-preserved symbolism, or finds a mere nursery legend ringing the changes upon an elaborate, though longforgotten zodiac. But, of course, this class of materials only became available when the foundations of mythonomy had been firmly laid and a considerable progress made in the erection of the superstructure itself.

The fact that the mythonomist has to proceed analytically and inductively, in order to reach the meaning of a fable, might seem to give to his conclusions a questionable aspect; and no doubt there are cases in which he may easily deceive himself, as there are in all analytical and inductive sciences: but, whatever may have been the difficulties of this subject heretofore-and they were sufficiently great to seem at first sight all but insuperable—these difficulties no longer exist for a large portion of the subject. Mythonomy is now an organized science, and would be at once acknowledged as such were its facts and laws fully set forth and accessible to the student; but time and circumstances have as yet prevented this being done to a sufficient extent; for the summary already published' is too brief and too sparingly illustrated by facts to meet the requirements of the case. But the present difficulties of the science do not so much concern the proper interpretation or sequence of fables as the bearings of the science generally on the history of the past. Here we need the widest basis of induction which circumstances will permit, as well as the most

Principles of Mythonomy, or the Origin and Development of Zodiacal Symbolism. Ethnological Journal (Quarterly Number), 1854.

careful balancing of the evidence; but even in this department many very important results have already been attained.

If, then, the mythonomist is necessarily an analyst, he has no need of working hypothetically, nor any special temptations to hasty inference; on the contrary, his science is sufficiently advanced and organized to supply him with rules of guidance and tests of accuracy well calculated to check impatience and necessitate careful criticism. More than this no science can do for either the reasoner or the observer.

From this view of the subject it results that mythology presents us a solid substratum of fact, on which the play of fancy, the necessities of figurative language, the vicissitudes of time, and the credulity of early humanity have raised a superstructure of wild, though sometimes also of grand and even beautiful extravagance. For the most part the substance has passed out of memory, and the extravagance alone has remained; for the substance was not calculated to make any deep impression on the mind after it had ceased to be a current usage; but with the superstructure it was far otherwise. A marvellous and thrilling legend, simple in form, striking in imagery, and capable of expression in rude picture-writing, might defy for untold ages the vicissitudes of time. Once accepted by credulity as a veritable record of the past, once carried into the hallowed circle of religious belief, and it might survive the rudest shocks which humanity has had to endure, and still linger in the memory of men even when increased knowledge and a higher mental status had smiled away its sacredness. To such fables as these the poet will cling long after the philosopher has rejected them, and even when poesy itself has wearied of their repetition they may become immortal in the nursery.

Mythology, then, like geology, reveals its meaning by inference only; but just as every vestige of organic matter may have vanished from a fossil, while yet the solid rock retains each form and line of that which it has supplanted, so the fable which speaks not of cycle, nor zodiac, nor year, nor season, nor symbol, has yet derived from these its every form and feature, and needs only to be cut through by a skilled hand to give back its perished import.

Thus treated, mythic tradition at once lays aside its triviality and extravagance, and opens to our view a mine of antiquarian wealth, everywhere pregnant with meaning, everywhere ready to throw light upon the great past; and light, too, which could come from no other source. We cannot, in fact, any longer dispense with the serious study of this subject: it is scarcely of less antiquarian importance than that of monuments and languages. Indeed, we may truly say that Monuments, Languages, Myths, and the Laws of Race are the four corner-stones of that edifice of genuine history which