xii PREFACE. 



Ethnological race and phonological race are not commensurate, except 

 in ante-historical times, or perhaps at the very dawn of history. 

 With the migration of tribes, their wars, their colonies, their conquests 

 and alliances, which, if we may judge from their effects, must have 

 been much more violent in the ethnic, than even in the political, 

 period of history, it is impossible to imagine that race and language 

 should continue to run parallel. The physiologist should pursue his 

 own science unconcerned about language." 



It is further desirable to remark that the statements 

 in this Essay respecting the forms of Native American 

 crania need rectification. On this point, I refer the 

 reader who is interested in the subject to my paper 

 " On the Form of the Cranium among the Patagonians 

 and the Fuegians" published in the Journal of 

 Anatomy and Physiology for 1868. 



If the problem discussed in my address to the British 

 Association in 1870 has not yet received its solution, 

 it is not because the champions of Abiogenesis have 

 been idle, or wanting in confidence. But every new 

 assertion on their side has been met by a counter 

 assertion ; and though the public may have been led 

 to believe that so much noise must indicate rapid 

 progress, one way or the other, an impartial critic will 

 admit, with sorrow, that the question has been " marking 

 time " rather than marching. In mere sound, these two 

 processes are not so very different. 



LONDON, April 1873. 



