396 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XX 



each dialect may be. The most difficult task of all will 

 be to prevent the assembled Savans from massacring the 

 " specimens" at the end of the exhibition for the sake of 

 their skulls and pelves ! 



I am really afraid that my own virtue might yield if 

 so tempted ! 



Jesting apart, I heartily wish your plans success, and 

 if there are any more definite ways in which I can help, 

 let me know, and I will do my best. You will want, I 

 should think, a physical and a philological committee to 

 organise schemes : (1) for systematic measuring, weighing, 

 and portraiture, with observation and recording of all 

 physical characters ; and (2) for uniform registering of 

 sounds by Roman letters and collection of vocabularies 

 and grammatical forms upon an uniform system. 



I should advise you to look into the Museum of the 

 Societ^ d'Anthropologie of Paris, and to put yourself in 

 communication with M. Paul Broca, one of its most 

 active members, who has lately been organising a scheme 

 of general anthropological instructions. But don't have 

 anything to do with the quacks who are at the head 

 of the " Anthropological Society " over here. If they 

 catch scent of what you are about they will certainly 

 want to hook on to you. 



Once more I wish I had the chance of being able to 

 visit your congress. I have been lecturing on Ethnology 

 this year, 1 and shall be again this year, and I would give 

 a good deal to be able to look at the complex facts of 

 Indian Ethnology with my own eyes. 



But as the sage observed, " what's impossible can't be," 

 and what with short holidays a wife and seven children 

 and. miles of work in arrear, India is an impossibility 

 for me. 



You say nothing about yourself, so I trust you are 

 well and hearty, and all your belongings flourishing. 

 Ever yours faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



1 As Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution. 



