88 REPORT — 1851. 



good descriptions. Some of them are feeble dwarfs under five feet, and others are 

 powerful men. To include the whole under one category is surely contrary to truth 

 and nature. 



As far as language can be considered a test of race, and as the present state of our 

 knowledge on the subject will enable us to judge, it goes to prove that all the races 

 of whose languages we possess examples, are separate and distinct from each other. 

 I have compared the words of nine negro languages. Three of these consist of the 

 few words of Mallicolo, Tanna and New Caledonia, given by Foster in his Obser- 

 vations on Cook's second voyage, and six of 55 words of the Saman of the Malay 

 peninsula from my own collection, and of those of the Gebe, Waigyu, New Guinea, 

 New Ireland and Vanikoro, the scene of the wreck of La Perouse, from that of M. 

 Gaimard. 



An examination of these comparative vocabularies corrects one error of very 

 general acceptance, that the negro languages contain no Malay words, for each of 

 the nine contains Malay words. The proportion of Malay words is considerable in 

 the languages of those tribes which are nearest to the Malays, and therefore most 

 amenable to Malayan influence, and diminishes in proportion to distance or other 

 difficulty of communication. Excluding the numerals, which in most cases are 

 Malayan, the proportion in 100 words of the Saman is 12; in the Gebe about 8; in 

 the Waigyu above 5; in the Doree Harbour of New Guinea near 4; in the Port 

 Carteret of New Ireland 6; and in the Vanikoro little more than 3. The greater 

 number of Malayan words in all these negro languages consist of nouns or names of 

 physical objects, and none of them can be said to be essential to the grammatical 

 structure. They are, in fact, substantially extrinsic. 



A comparison of the native words of the negro languages themselves shows that 

 they agree in a very small number of cases, where the tribes speaking them are in 

 the vicinity of each other. Thus several words are substantially the same in the 

 Waigyu and in the New Guinea. This is, however, the exception, and the rule is a 

 total disagreement. Thus between the language of the negroes of the peninsula of 

 New Guinea and of New Ireland there is not one word alike. There is no evidence 

 therefore to justify the conclusion that the oriental negro, wherever found, is of one 

 and the same race. 



On the Geography of Borneo, superadding a Description of the Condition of 

 the Island and of its chief Products, illustrated by Historical References. 

 By W-. J. Ckawfurd, F'.R.S. 



On a proposed Canal across the Isthmus of Darien. By Dr. Cullen. 



Notes on Cambodia. By Windsor Earl. 



A Synopsis of Seventy-two Languages of Abyssinia and the adjacent Coun- 

 tries. By Antoine D'Abbadie, Paris. 



Oti an OreograpJiical Map ofFinlarid. By Baron Hartmann. 



Letter to Mr. Stevens on his Ascent of 3Iount Ararat. By M. Khanikoff. 



"We were with Colonel Khodzko and four other travelling companions upon the 

 snow-crowned head of this graul, 17,000 English feet high, during the 6th of August. 

 The ascent does not present upon the side which we attempted — that is to say, the 

 Natchwaco side — any great difficulties; above all, with the ample means which we 

 had at our disposal, consisting of cossacks, soldiers, peasants, beasts of burden, tents, 

 provisions, fuel, &c. For myself, I remained twenty-four hours upon the top, 

 having maintained an uninterrupted series of horary observations of the barometer, 

 the thermometer, and the psych rometer, to determine the diurnal changes in the 



