bet et ae on) ane Ee es | 
y TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 129 
The long lists of words from which the above selected vocabulary is taken are too 
numerous and regular to be examples of mere accidental coincidence. ‘They are 
words, too, that form the basis or groundwork of speech, and not such words as are 
commonly imported from one language to another by the fortune of war, or by the 
peaceful intercourse of commerce. Hence it is impossible to escape the conclusion, 
that the Indo-European element of the Finn language is an essential fundamental 
element pervading the Finn language; and being so, the Finn language must be 
grouped as a member of the Indo-European family of langaages. This philological 
result, is of ethnological value; for as we are justified in assuming that peoples 
speaking languages of a common origin have themselves a common origin, we are 
bound to assume the Finns to be of the same origin as the rest of the Indo-European 
nations. And all the Finnic tongues, as the Hungarian, the Lapponic, the Estho- 
nian, and those of the isolated tribes in the Russian Empire, as the Karelian, the 
Cheremissian, the Sirjanian, &c., must with the peoples speaking them be admitted 
into the Indo-European family of tongues and peoples. 
There is no time even to state the consequences of this admission, but the close 
connexion of the Turanian and Indo-European families of languages by means of 
the Finnic dialects is too important not to be named. 
On China, in more immediate reference to pending Operations in that 
Quarter. By Sir Joun F. Davis, Bart., K.C.B., PRS. 
The paper, after some general remarks on the interest of the subject at the present 
moment, enters into a running but graphic description of the coast of Canton river, 
Chusan, Shanghai, &c., showing the facilities which in many places they afford for 
defence, and for annoying the hostile fleet, but at the same time the facility with 
which any such annoyance on the part of the Chinese could be overcome. With 
respect to Canton, Sir John says,—‘ It seems at once good policy as regards the 
Cantonese, and mere justice and humanity towards the better-disposed populations 
towards the north-east, that, if a lesson is to be administered, it should be adminis- 
tered in the right quarter. Topical evils require topical remedies, and if we were 
once more to leave Canton to itself (as we have done before), the question would 
again be asked, which was so often asked then, ‘ Why did you not address yourselves 
to those who had offended you, and were prepared to resist you, instead of attacking 
us?’ At Canton, besides, there is nothing at present to lose, for all trade has left 
it, and all the foreign quarter is in ruins. The complete capture and occupation of 
the city, and the heights behind, by our troops, with Hong-Kong and its harbour, its 
barracks and its hospitals, for the base of operations, would at once dispel the delu- 
‘sions of the Cantonese, and supply us with a material guarantee and pledge, as long 
as it was retained, for all that we have to require from the Pekin Government. 
These two points seem to comprise within themselves the objects of the expedition, 
that is to say, satisfaction for the past and security for the future; and as the 
surest way to the second, the first seems indispensable, viz. the capture and occu- 
pation of the provincial city.” 
On the Physical Characteristies of the Ancient Irish. 
By Joun O'Donovan, LL.D. 
The author argued at full length to prove that the ancient Irish were a large race 
of men, warlike and vigorous, from the poet Claudian and the Christian father St. 
Jerome, the latter of whom describes a Scot from the neighbourhood of Britain, as 
**canem grandem et corpulentum, et qui calcibus magis possit sevire quam dentibus.”’ 
Passing over many fabulous accounts of the gigantic size of the ancient Irish, he 
dwelt with particular emphasis upon the description of the stature and personal 
appearance of the Irish people given by Giraldus Cambrensis in 1183, before they 
had received any admixture of Saxon or Anglo-Norman blood. In his ‘ Topographia 
Hiberniz,’ Dist. i. c. 19, Giraldus says that all the animals in Ireland were smaller 
than those he had seen in other countries, except man, ‘‘ who alone retained his 
majesty of stature ;”” and in Dist. iii. c. x., where he says that (although the Irish 
were = adepts in the science of nursing) their children nevertheless grew up by 
' 18577. 
