296 M. (TOrbigiii/s Travels in South America. 



When, however, our philological knowledge shall become yet 

 further enlarged, it will be seen whether or not all the languages 

 of the earth, and the people speaking them, are referrible to the 

 three distinct divisions which have thus been enumerated ; and 

 it will also be definitely ascertained, whether these divisions of 

 languages are, like the distinct races of mankind to whom they 

 belong, reducible to one common source. With respect to the 

 former of these questions, there is good reason to believe that, 

 sooner or later, it will be determined in the affirmative ; but, 

 with regard to the latter of them, the opinion of philologists is 

 already very decidedly in the negative. Speaking of the so- 

 called Semitic (Hamitish) languages, M. de Schlegel remarks, 

 " EUes sont apart de la famille Indo-Germanique. Aucun 

 tour de force etymologique ne peut les ramener a une origine 

 commune ; les vains efforts des Hellenistes Hebraisans sout con- 

 damnes pour toujours.'"* If the truth of this representation be 

 established, we shall be compelled to have recourse to an ori- 

 ginal formation of more than one primitive tongue ; an hypothe- 

 sis which, in reality, is attended with no greater difficulty than 

 that of the original formation of a single language. 



LoNDoir, 30t& August 1834. 



Report hy MM. Geoffroy St Hilaire and De BlainviUe on the 

 Zoological Results of the Travels of M. Alcide (tOrhigny in 

 South America, from 1826-1833. 



The remarkable and splendid augmentations which our na- 

 tional collections of natural history have for a long time received, 

 have been chiefly the result of voyages of circumnavigation, or 

 at least of maritime expeditions, sent for the purpose of exploring 

 the Southern Seas ; and they consequently consist, for the most 

 part, of the productions of the Indian ocean, of Australasia, and 

 of the Pacific. In these circumstances, the Directors of the 



(and also upon many other important subjects,) in Dr Lang's View of the Origin 

 and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation, which work was published almost si- 

 multaneously with my Origines Biblicce. February 19. 1835. 

 • " De rOrigine des Hindous," ut supra. 



