384 



lages ; they are very fond of figliting, and pass at least half their 

 time in war ; they have a strong religious sentiment, and are very 

 fond of poetry ; they are polygamous. 3. A mixed race of Turks 

 and women of the different races of the country, which has begun 

 to disappear since the dominion of the French. 4. In the interior 

 of Africa there is a race like the Germanic, with light hair and 

 blue eyes, which he believes to be descendants of the ancient 

 Gauls or Carthaginians ; they are polygamous, and present the 

 curious phenomenon that the women are sovereign in the family 

 and in the state, though the daughter of the queen cannot inherit 

 the throne ; they make long pilgrimages on very swift camels for 

 the purpose of carrying off negro slaves — they are called Tuariks. 

 5. A mixed white and black race, the Fellatah, embracing many 

 millions ; a powerful people, of very social disposition. 6. Ne- 

 groes, from Congo, Timbuctoo, &c. ; the best are from the neigh- 

 borhood of Lake Tsad ; they are idolaters, making sacrifices to 

 their gods of sheep, cocks, and other animals, and drawing from 

 them various auguries. They are subject to a kind of periodic 

 insanity, like some of the New Orleans negroes, in which they 

 call on the spirits of their ancestors, and often fall insensible. 

 The characters of these different races are not perfectly distinct ; 

 especially of some of those communities which gather about a 

 well or oasis in the desert, a few hundreds together, which they 

 often wall around, and foi'm into small villages. The Kabyles 

 have well shaped heads ; the Arabs have low, retreating foreheads. 

 In answer to the question whether there exists in Africa any race 

 of human beings with tails, Dr. B. replied that in the neighbor- 

 hood of the Mountains of the Moon, there is said to be a large 

 tribe of ferocious cannibals, having an elongated coccyx, project- 

 ing like a tail from three to ten inches ; when seen by other 

 tribes they are killed as if they were wild beasts — he had never 

 seen any specimens, though it is generally believed that such a 

 race exists. 



Mr. J. M. Barnard exhibited a very perfect specimen of 

 a rare echinoderm, Acrocladia manimillata, from the Sand- 

 wich Islands ; the specimen had a broken spine in proc- 

 ess of reparation, of a form generally supposed to belong 

 to another genus. He remarked that he expected soon 



