Lying far off, and rich in metals Of tin and lead. Great the strength of this nation, Proud their mind, powerful their skill, Trading the constant care of all. The broad boisterous channel with boats and southerly wind, They cut the gulf of the monster-filled ocean; They know not to fit with pine Their keels, nor with fir, as use is, They shape their boats; but, strange to say, They fit their vessels with united skins, And often traverse the deep in a hide. Then, after mentioning the sacred island of the Hiberni and the island of the Albiones, he adds, ‘It is customary for the people of Tartessus to trade in the bounds of the Oestrymnides;’[189] and Priscianus Periegeta, who flourished in the beginning of the sixth century, calls them the Hesperides, and says that over-against the sacred promontory which men call the end of Europe lie the Hesperides, full of tin, which the strong people of the Iberi occupy.[190] If these notices show that a persuasion existed among many that the population of the Scilly Isles, Cornwall, and South Wales was Iberian, an examination of the ancient sepulchral remains in Britain gives us reason to suppose that a people possessing their physical characteristics had once spread over the whole of both of the British Isles. The latest writer on the subject thus sums up the result of the investigation into the character of these remains:—‘The materials for working out the craniology of Europe in prehistoric times do not justify any sweeping conclusions as to the distribution of the various races, but those which Dr. Thurnam has collected in Britain offer a firm basis for such an inquiry. In the numerous long barrows and chambered-gallery graves of our island, which, from the invariable absence of bronze and the frequent presence of polished stone implements, may be referred to the neolithic age, the crania belong, with scarcely an exception, to the first two of these divisions (the Dolichocephali or long skulls). In the round barrows, on the other hand, in which bronze articles are found, they belong mainly to the third division (Brachycephali or broad skulls), although some are Orthocephalous (having oval skulls). On evidence of this kind Dr. Thurnam concludes that Britain was inhabited in the neolithic age by a long-headed people, and that towards its close it was invaded by a bronze-using race, who were dominant during the bronze age. This important conclusion has been verified by nearly every discovery which has been made in this country since its publication. The long skulls graduate into the broad, the oval skulls being the intermediate forms, and this would naturally result from the intermingling of the blood of the two races.’[191] Ireland presents precisely the same phenomena.[192] The same writer thus sums up the result of the inquiry:—‘Dr. Thurnam was the first to recognise that the