PROVISIONAL REPORTS, AND NOTICES. 447 
memoir, and the plate which accompanies it, amount to 63/., 
which is the whole charge for the present year. ‘The Committee 
report that translations have been gratuitously presented to them 
by Major Sabine, of the five undermentioned memoirs on mag- 
netical instruments, and on subjects of prominent interest in 
mathematical and physical science. 
1. Gauss.—General theory of terrestrial magnetism. 
2. Encke.—On the method of least squares. 
3. Bessel.—On the determination of the axes of the elliptic spheriod of revo- 
lution, which most nearly corresponds to the existing measurements of arcs of 
the meridian. 
4. Weber.—Description and use of a transportable magnetometer. 
5. Bessel.—On the barometrical measurement of heights. 
The Committee placed these translations in the hands of 
Mr. Taylor, by whom they have been printed in the sixth, se- 
venth and eighth numbers of the “Scientific Memoirs.” The 
Committee further acknowledge the receipt of a translation of 
Rudberg’s experiments ‘‘ On the expansion of Dry Air,” gra- 
tuitously presented by Professor Miller, of Cambridge. This 
translation has also been placed in Mr. Taylor’s hands, and 
will make a part of the eighth number of the “ Scientific Me- 
moirs.” 
VARIETIES OF HUMAN RACE. 
Queries respecting the Human Race, to be addressed to Tra- 
vellers and others. Drawn up by a Committee of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, appointed in 
1839. 
Ar the meeting of the British Association held at Birmingham, 
Dr. Prichard read a paper ‘‘On the Extinction of some varieties 
of the Human Race.” He pointed out instances in which 
this extinction had already taken place to a great extent, and 
showed that many races now existing are likely, at no distant 
pei to be annihilated. He pointed out the irretrievable 
oss which science must sustain, if so large a portion of the hu- 
man race, counting by tribes instead of individuals, is suffered 
to perish, before many interesting questions of a psychological, 
physiological and philological character, as well as many histo- 
rical facts in relation to them, have been investigated. Whence 
he argued that science, as well as humanity, is interested in the 
efforts which are made to rescue them, and to preserve from 
oblivion many important details connected with them. 
At the suggestion of the Natural Historical Section, to which 
Dr. Prichard’s paper was read, the Association voted the sum of 
