138 REPORT— 1851. 



Thus mercaptan, kapnomor, pittacal, parabanic acid, allophanic ether, 

 seem for the above reasons objectionable ; whilst such terms as mellon, cre- 

 osote, glycerine, &c., are perhaps as good as could have been fixed upon under 

 the circumstances for the bodies so designated. 



3rd. That when the substance to be named has been produced by natural 

 processes, and only eliminated by art, a name expressive of its origin would 

 seem preferable to one taken from its composition. 



Hence not only should the tei-ms strychnine, nicotine, &c. be retained, 

 but even toluidine, xylidine, and cumidine, although apparently produced 

 by the replacement of hydrogen atoms, like the artificial compounds which 

 Hofmann has discovered, should be preferred to words indicative of their 

 component parts. 



4th. That in general bodies belonging to the same class, or formed accord- 

 ing to the same type, should preserve the same termination ; but that never- 

 theless when a body, long recognized and familiarly known to us, has been 

 shown to belong to a type to which a particular termination is assigned, it 

 may not be advisable to alter its recognized and received appellation, so as 

 to bring it into harmony with the rest. 



Thus the term urea should be retained unaltered, notwithstanding its 

 analogy in certain respects to the organic alkalies, which have the termina- 

 tion ine appropriated to them. 



On two unsolved Problems in Indo-German Philology. 

 By the Rev. J. W. Donaldson, B.D. 



The science of Ethnography, which involves the arrangement and classifi- 

 cation of the different members of the human family, and explains their 

 common origin and casual juxtapositions, must be regarded as the most im- 

 portant accession to systematic knowledge which has been made in our time. 

 It is only recently that it has found a place among the subjects of inquiry 

 suggested to the British Association ; and until the present year it has been 

 entrusted to a subsection only. But if we estimate its value properly, and 

 consider the diversified range of study which it implies, and the vast number 

 of labourers who are contributing in different ways to lay the foundations of 

 this great edifice, we may fairly plead for a recognition of its right to a fore- 

 most place among those sciences which it is the design of this Association to 

 advance. At any rate there is no branch of study which is more likely to 

 profit by the retrospective surveys, for which an annual meeting like the 

 present furnishes so good an opportunity. For while no science is more 

 steadily progressive than ethnography, and while none more rapidly accu- 

 mulates the materials of induction, its encyclopedic range, and the want of 

 communication between the many active minds engaged upon it, especially 

 necessitate a periodical report of its existing state, such as may suffice to in- 

 dicate what has been really effected, and to point out the objects to which 

 the attention of inquirers may still be most profitably directed. At the 

 present season, when the Great Exhibition in the metropolis has brought to 

 our shores deputations from all the leading families of the Indo-European 

 race, and when we are met near the East- Anglian coast, where Britain re- 

 ceived the first instalments of that northern colony which gave a new name 

 to our island and ingrafted on our language its most characteristic elements, 

 it seems particularly incumbent upon us to look back on what has been 



