1868.] 403 [Bickmore. 



arc quite remarkable, for while the femur is smooth, the tibia is 

 furnished with several prominences of large size; in modern types, 

 the prominences, if they occur at all, are found only on the temur; 

 in this specimen there is a slight rounded pi'ominence on the upper 

 surface at the very base of the tibia and another just beyond the 

 middle; opposite the latter, on the upper surface, is a deeply bifid 

 elevation, its hollow corresponding to the elevation on the upper 

 surface ; the basal half of the under surface is occupied by a very 

 broad prominence, abrupt at its edges, of nearly equal height through- 

 out, but slightly depressed in the middle. Length of the femur, . 28 

 inches ; breadth of the same, .11 inches; length of the tibia, .26 inchee; 

 breadth of the same, .045 inches. 



March 4, 1868. 



Vice President, Mr. T. T. Bouve, in the chair. Thirty- 

 nine members present. 



Mr. Albert S. Bickmore read a paper on the Ainos, or 

 hairy men of Yesso, Saghalien and tlie Kurile Islands. 



In the spring of 1867, Mr. Bickmore passed through Ilakodadi on 

 his way from Yedo to the mouth of the Amoor river. Crossing the 

 Japan sea to the coast of Manchuria, he continued up the Gulf of 

 Tartary to Saghalien, meeting the Ainos both here and at Ilakodadi. 

 He describes them as about five feet high, with large heads and long 

 black hair and beards. Their features resemble so essentially those 

 of the Caucasians that Mr. Bickmore does not hesitate to remove 

 them from the Turanian family, where they have been hitherto placed, 

 and refer them to the Indo-European or Aryan family. Ethnologists 

 in London and Berlin have since coincided with this view. These 

 people are peaceable, generous and affectionate; they have no M-ritten 

 characters— not even the jjicture language of the ancient inhabitants 

 of Mexico and Peru; the nearest approach to anything of the kind 

 is the practice of the old men at Saghalien who communicate with 

 each other by means of sticks peculiarly notched. They do not cul- 

 tivate the soil, but subsist chiefly by fishing; they use poisoned an-ows 

 in hunting, and consider it the height of bravery to kill a bear; the 

 skulls of these animals are placed on tall sticks near their houses; 

 twenty-nine were counted in front of a single dwelling in Yesso. 



