August 29, 1878] 



NATURE 



479 



Tropical Aborigines. — The tribes spoken of vere some of those 

 in West Africa and South America, with whom he had been 

 acquainted during twenty-three years. The object of the paper 

 was to show analogies in superstition and social barbarities, as 

 well as in a sort of indigenous civilisation amongst people of 

 different races dwelling on different sides of the globe, and with 

 respect to whom there was no evidence of their having ever been 

 in communication with each other. 



M. Henri Martin, the French historian, read a paper written 

 in ^French, entitled Les Races anciennes de V Irlande ; Uiiliie de 

 V Etude des Traditions qui les concerttent pour V Ethnographic de 

 V Europe primitive. 



The chairman, Lord Talbot de Malahide, said they must all 

 be very much flattered at the interest which M. Henri Martin 

 had taken in the ancient history and traditions of Ireland. He 

 had shown in how many respects those traditions were connected 

 with the traditions of the Continent, and how much light they 

 threw on the migrations of the principal races which had colonised 

 Europe. 



Mr. H. H, Howorth made a communication on the Spread of 

 the Slavs. — He said that if they excluded the Turks from 

 Roumelia and Bulgaria, the Basques from Spain, and the various 

 tribes of Finns from the north-east of Russia, they should have 

 a tolerably homogeneous population left in Europe, which might 

 be divided into the Celts, in the West ; the Teuton in the centre, 

 and the Slavs in the East. The ethnology of the Slavs had 

 only been recently treated on a scientific basis. They owed this 

 to the researches of Count Polocki and Shafarick, the results of 

 which, together with some of his own, he would bring before 

 them. Patriotic Russians derived the name Slav from Slova — 

 glory — a derivation improbable, when it was remembered that 

 the name was very recent, not occurring before the sixth century. 

 Shafarick believed that Serb was the oldest name of the Slavs, 

 but that also was a modern name, and appeared to be of foreign 

 origin. The oldest name of the Slavs was that by which they 

 were known to the Germans — namely, Wends, a name occurring 

 in classical writers under the form of Veneti. It was curious 

 that the name Slav (slave) and Sei-vus (Servian) should both 

 indicate a people of servile condition. The Emperor Constantine, 

 who gave the first account of the Servians, said that the name 

 Servian was derived from the fact that they served the Roman 

 emperor. About the Christian era, there was a great revival 

 amongst the races of Eastern Europe. The power of various 

 nomades of South Russia, who are now known to be of Aryan 

 origin, ^\as broken by the Romans. That enabled the Turkish 

 and other nomades east of the Volga to invade Europe ; and 

 they drove the Aryans to the centre of Europe, vyhere they 

 settled in the country about the Carpathians. This accounted 

 for the fact that amongst the Poles and Bohemians the upper 

 classes were entirely distinct from the lower, the Polish grandees 

 being derived from the immigrants, while the peasants belonged 

 to the old stock of Slavs. Afterwards the Turks and Huns 

 pushed into Europe, driving the Slavs still further, and causing 

 in the sixth century a great migration of them south of the 

 Danube, where they overran Bulgaria, European Turkey, and 

 the mainland of Greece. Others were driven to the Dalmatian 

 coast and islands. The Emperor Heraclius, in order to protect 

 himself, invited the Slavs of the Carpathians, called Croats, 

 and the Serbs, to his assistance. The name Croat was derived 

 from their living in the mountain districts. Chrebet and Car- 

 parthian being the same word. One section of the Serbs who 

 lived on the river Bosna were called Bosnians ; another, who 

 inhabited the Black Mountains, were called Montenegrins. A 

 third section inhabited a district which was afterv\ards created 

 into a dukedom by the Emperor of Austria, on whom they were 

 dependent, and were called Herzegovinians from the German, 

 Herzog, a duke. The rest of the Serbs formed the Servian 

 community. All these were of one race, and had the same 

 traditions, the only difference being that the Croats were con- 

 verted to Roman Catholicism, while the Serbs became the 

 converts of Greek priests ; and hence arose their existing religious 

 differences. The Slavs of Eastern Thrace were conquered in 

 the seventh century by a race of intruders closely allied to the 

 Magyars of Hungary, and known as Bulgars. Their descen- 

 dants were the dominant class in Bulgaria, and had the high 

 cheek bones and oblique eyes of their race. The speaker con- 

 cluded by describing the various migrations of the Russian 

 Slavs. 



Prof. Daniel Wilson, F.R.S.E., of Toronto University, read 

 a paper On some American Illustrations of the Evolution of New 



Varieties of Man. — He said abundant traces were apparent of 

 the intrusion into Europe in prehistoric times of one or more 

 races superior alike in physical type and in the arts upon which 

 progress depends to the primitive races. Furthermore it was 

 assumed that an admixture took place between a fair, tali, 

 intrusive race and the primitive Australioid savage of Western 

 Europe, resulting in the so-called Melanochroi, still abundant in 

 Britain, France, and elsewhere. On turning to the American 

 Continent, they saw vast regions occupied exclusively, until a 

 comparatively recent date, by tribes of savage hunters, upon 

 whom the highly civilized races of Spain, France, and England 

 have intruded with results in many respects so strikingly accord- 

 ant with the supposed evolution of the Melanochroi of modern 

 Europe, that they seemed to look upon an illustrative series of 

 ethnological experiments carried on, on the amplest scale, and 

 begetting synthesis altogether confirmatory of previous inductions. 

 The intermingling of very diverse races at present taking place 

 on the American Continent, was indeed complex and varied. 

 Hybridity was the result on a great scale, and the process had 

 already been perpetuated sufficiently long to beget important 

 indications of the possible evolution of permanant hybrid 

 varieties. A new race, as among the tribes of half-breeds of 

 Manitoba, was seen as it were in the very process of evolution ; 

 while, sheltered within the remote Arctic North, man could be 

 studied among the Esquimaux in conditions closely analogous to 

 those which are ascribed to post-pliocene if not to pre-glacial 

 man. In the abrupt collision of the civilized races of Europe 

 with the American aborigines, it had been taken for granted 

 that the latter were doomed to inevitable extinction, and were to 

 be replaced by the purely intrusive race of the Old World. A 

 growing feeling was manifested now, alike in the United States 

 and in Canada, in favour of the idea that the Indian population 

 was not wholly disappearing by extinction, that a much larger 

 amount of healthful intermixture and consequent absorption had 

 taken place than unobservant critics had any conception of, and 

 that the native Indian element was a factor in the population of 

 the New World, destined to exercise an enduring influence on 

 the ethnical character of the Euromerican race. If so, and the 

 result was to be the perpetuation of permanent traces of the 

 native American man in the mixed race of settlers by whom the 

 vast forests and prairies of the New World were being con- 

 verted to the uses of civilized communities, rivalling Europe in 

 all the highest elements of progress, it would be no more than 

 had been already recognised in the mixed races of Europe. 



Mr. A. L. Lewis read a paper On the Evils arising from the 

 Use of Histoi'ical Natiotial Names and Scientific Terms. — The 

 propositions endeavoured to be established by Mr. Lewis were : 

 (i) That there were at the first population of Europe certain 

 primitive races, of which three are particularly described; (2) 

 that these races are so mixed at the present day that representa- 

 tives of them appear not only in most European nations, but in 

 the same families, and among children of the same parents ; (3), 

 that notwithstanding this mixture, and the effects which it must 

 permanently have, racial character displays an astonishing per- 

 manence ; (4) that this mixture, being so slow in its effects, and 

 yet having become so general, has probably been at work, and 

 for a very great length of time, so great that the peoples to 

 whom the earliest history of Europe introduces us were probably 

 nearly as much mixed as those of the present day ; (5) that it is 

 desirable to discontinue the use of the political names of those 

 people as ethnic names, and to employ others based on the 

 physical characteristics of the individuals ; (6) that while physical 

 characteristics are the only basis for a true division into races, 

 yet in any practical application of this division, we must consider 

 the influence upon individuals of different races of a community 

 of language, whose history or tradition must not be lost sight 

 of, although these things do not prove community of race, but 

 only the contact at some time or other of the races to whom they 

 are now common. 



Prof. Huxley said the subject of the paper was one of import- 

 ance, not merely on ethnological or scientific grounds, but because 

 it was unfortunately the source of a gi'eat many practical fallacies 

 which have had, and in fact still have, a very important poli- 

 tical influence. He doubted very much whether there was any 

 deliberate system of misnomer which was working more mischief 

 in this world than the preposterous talk about the national 

 qualities of the Celt and the Saxon. He had taken the liberty a 

 number of years ago of getting himself into hot water by trying 

 to awaken people's attention to what was the effect with regard 

 to the use of these terms, and to the sort of mischief that was 



