_Ethnology of England_ (Vol. vii., p. 135.).--In reference to that portion
of the Query by ETHNOLOGICUS which asks "Whether it is yet clearly settled
that there are types of the heads of Ancient Britons, Saxons, Danes, and
other races, to be referred to as standards or examples of the respective
crania of those people?" I beg to say that beneath the chancel of the
church of St. Leonard, Hythe, there is a crypt containing a vast number of
skulls and other human bones, which, according to Jeake, the historian of
the Cinque Ports, are--
"Supposed by some to be gathered at the shore after a great sea-fight
and slaughter of the French and English on that coast; whose carcases,
or their bones, after the consumption of the flesh, might be cast up
there, and so gathered and reserved for memorandum."
Speaking of these relics, Walker, in his _Physiology_, says:
"These skulls at Hythe are not of one race, either Saxon or British,
but of several; two forms of skull, very distinct from each other,
predominate: one, a long narrow skull, greatly resembling the Celtic of
the present day; the other, a short broad skull, greatly resembling the
Gothic.... Another kind of skulls, fewer in number, are evidently Roman
skulls."