induces the belief that it is more remote from the second, than the second is from the present period. To these irrefutable proofs of the antiquity of man, others may be joined which have for a long time been discarded by prejudiced minds, but the value of which you have always recognized. Frequently, both in Europe and in America, human bones, implements made of flint, bones, or stag horn, cinders and charcoal, have been found in caverns, mixed with the remains of animals of the quaternary period. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire has justly observed that if the bones of any other animal than those of man had been found under similar circumstances no one would have dreamt to deny their antiquity. But he adds, as the co-existence of man with the extinct animals could not be admitted without undermining a doctrine so deeply rooted in science, as well as in theology, the mind was tortured to find reasons for non-acceptance; and the most various and sometimes extremely improbable hypotheses were imagined, to explain how these human bones were subsequently transported into these caverns. This was the opinion three years ago of the illustrious colleague whom we have lost. A few days after he showed us a staghorn arrow, found by M. Alfred Fontan in a cavern, where also two human teeth and the remains of several extinct animals were found. This arrow, notched at the edges, presented upon one of the surfaces little grooves, probably as M. Lartet supposes for the reception of poison. This fact, accepted by so cautious an observer as M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, by so expert a geologist as M. Lartet, has greatly struck you; and when afterwards you heard of the human skulls found by M. Schmerling and M. Spring, in the caverns about Liège, of those found by Mr. Aymard in the osseous breccia of Mont Denise, of those found by M. Lund in the caverns of America, you evinced no incredulity; but you would perhaps have evinced greater hesitation if the discovery of M. Boucher de Perthes had not previously prepared you for accepting these multiplied evidences in favour of the antiquity of man. It must be confessed that the prejudices prevalent some years since, among all classes, and even among scientific men, were of such a nature that they could only be removed by an accumulation of evidence.

In order to remove these prejudices it was not sufficient to show that human remains are frequently intermixed with the bones of socalled antediluvian animals; for it was objected that man might have entered the osseous caverns long after the extinction of these animals; that ferocious beasts, subterraneous currents might subsequently have imported fragments of his skeleton, or that they might have been

introduced by crevices; and when it was shown that, applied to some special cases, all these interpretations were false, there remained yet that intangible objection, that some unknown cause may have disturbed the soil of the caverns. A question thus put could only be solved by a different mode of investigation. It was now requisite to search for the traces of man no longer in caverns, of which the evidence was rejected, nor in the osseous breccia, but in the quaternary formations, in situ, in beds which neither were nor could have been disturbed, since they have preserved their relations with the superficial and lower strata. It was then that M. Boucher de Perthes commenced in the diluvium of the Somme those long and difficult researches of which he has given you a history, in his letter of the 17th of November, 1859.

It is in this ancient and deep bed, which has remained undisturbed for a frightfully long series of centuries, that he, and so many after him, have found the flint implements used by man in combating the monsters of another period, intermixed with the remains of the rhinoceros and the mammoth.

This time the demonstration was complete; but to render it more palpable, more striking, and to render it safe from the last objection of sceptics, a crowning proof was required; it was requisite to discover in the fossiliferous diluvium not merely the remains of man's industry but the remains of his body. None of you doubted that ultimately this final evidence would be produced. Yet years elapsed without your expectation being realized. Who was to be the happy explorer whom chance would enable to ally his name with the discovery of the fossil man? Gentlemen, there is justice sometimes in destiny; this good fortune was reserved to the man who has devoted twenty-five years of his life to the demonstration of one of the greatest truths in science, who, for a long time railed at, or what is worse, treated with contempt, had to struggle against universal prejudices, but who by his perseverance and courage received first some tardy support, until at last this depressed truth broke forth in science. M. Boucher de Perthes has the glory of having finished the edifice of which he has laid the first stone. What must have been the joy of this venerable man, when he was called upon to extract from the diluvial bed the celebrated human jaw which our learned president has some days since shown you. The clear and complete exposition of M. de Quatrefages, the history of the objections raised in London, and which have ended in the formation of an international commission, all this has produced in you a profound conviction of the authenticity of the

fossil jaw; and you have remembered with pride that M. Boucher de Perthes has been for three years one of the six honorary members of your society.

Gentlemen, when, four years ago, some of us formed the project of founding an anthropological society, doubts were raised as to the possibility of success; we were threatened with the indifference of the public. We were, however, not discouraged, and we were right. We were then nineteen; we are now two hundred. Let us then proceed resolutely.

As for myself, gentlemen, I must apologize for having so long occupied your attention; but I cannot quit this tribune without thanking you for the honour you have done me by appointing me general secretary. You might have chosen a worthier, but not a more devoted one.

ON THE SUPPOSED INCREASING PREVALENCE OF DARK HAIR IN ENGLAND.

BY JOHN BEDDOE, M.D., F.A.S.L., &c.

FOREIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS.

It is the opinion of some scientific,* and of many unscientific observers, that light hair is gradually becoming less common in England than it used to be; and, while some confine the bearing of this statement within the limits of their own lifetime and observation, others extend it to previous centuries, attaching great importance to the terms in which our Saxon, Danish, and Normant ancestors are described as having red, yellow, or other light shades of hair.

I do not wish to discuss, in the present article, the question whether this opinion has any foundation in fact. Some light might be thrown upon it by a careful examination of the national and other portrait galleries; and I incline to think that the portraits of the worthies of the sixteenth century would lend some little support to the notion. I merely wish to point out that if the fact be so, or so far as it is so, it may be accounted for by other causes than those which have usually

* E. g. of Mrs. Somerville, Physical Geography.

+ Dr. Bird, of Swansea, informs me that the chapel of the Anglo-Norman gar. rison at Brecon was anciently known as "the chapel of the red haired." This is a rather striking fact, as red hair is not uncommon among the South Welsh themselves at the present day.

been assigned to it. In the first place, the large towns, and other more civilized and populous parts of England, have for some time past been receiving constant streams of immigrants from Ireland, Wales, Damnonia, the Highlands, and other Celtic districts, in which dark hair abounds. In the second, I am disposed to think that the xanthous temperament, though probably better adapted to the climate. of these islands than the melanous, is less able to endure some of the anti-hygienic agencies which operate on the crowded populations of our great towns; and that thus the law of natural selection operates against its multiplication. And, in the third place, as a large minority of women live and die unmarried and without offspring, it is probable that the physical qualities of the race may be to some small extent moulded by the action of conjugal as well as of natural selection. In order to test the tendency of this hypothetical influence, I have extracted from my note-books particulars of the social condition (viz., whether married or single), and of the colour of the hair, of 737 women, aged between twenty and fifty, who came under my observation at the Bristol Royal Infirmary: these I have thrown into the form of a table, which will, I hope, be sufficiently intelligible.

The indications of the above table may be rendered more clear by the following one, in which I have assumed the number under each colour to be 100, and have reduced to percentages the different conditions in each class.

*Including widows.

These were persons who described themselves by their occupation only: they were probably for the most part either single women or widows.

Lastly, still further to simplify the matter, we may throw together the red, fair, and brown classes under the head of "blonde," and the dark-brown and black under that of "dark," of which two the former will include 367 women, and the latter 369. The results will be as follows::

The deduction I should make from these figures is, that, whether because the mass of the population does not sympathize with the. preference which artists and poets have always manifested in favour of fair hair, or from some other cause, fewer of light-haired women than of dark-haired get married in this part of England.* Then if during several generations this should continue to be the case, is it not probable that the relative proportion of the favoured colour would considerably increase, in accordance with the laws of hereditary influence ?

ON THE ABBEVILLE JAW.

By A. DE QUATREFAGES,

MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE; PRESIDENT OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS; HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

TRANSLATED BY GEORGE FREDERICK ROLPH, Esq.

WHEN I was informed of the discovery which M. de Perthes had made, I speedily proceeded to ascertain the facts of the case as soon as it was possible to leave Paris. At Abbeville I had the good fortune to meet with Dr. Falconer, the eminent English palæontologist, who had arrived there before me. With this competent and highly qualified

In some young women the hue of the hair continues to darken after they have overpassed the twentieth year, though in others it attains its maximum of darkness within a very few years after puberty. I mention this fact because it may, and probably does, account for a part of the difference between the proportions of the married in the several classes.