Jan. 31, 1884] 



NA TURE 



^19 



VI ry poorly representel i i the Lena. As M. Bunge gives great 

 nttenti >n to tie collecting of skulls of a liinal-, his collec- 



1 11 promi- es to be of great value, as also his c jUeclion of 



aia 1 skulN t.iken from the cjftins that dot the tundra — 



V.ikuls merely putting ihem on the surface between a fev 



. ;h i-lanlvs. !■ is worthy of notice that, whilst having many 



ortunilics for visiting the siclc Yakuts in the neighbourhood, 



Ijunge has not yet noticed a single case of scurfy; it is quite 



i:n noivn among them. 



We h.ivc received a separate copy from the forthcoming 

 number of the h-.cs'ia of the Russian Geographical Society of a 

 notice of the re narkabl- Ru-.sian expeditions to the Pamir, 

 cairied on during list suaimer. It is sufficimt to ca t a glance 

 at the map that accompanies this note t5 ascertain that "the 

 Koof of the World " has now been quite deprived of the veil of 

 m\stery that covered it for centuries past. M.my years since 

 Russian travellers penetrated into i', and studied detached portions 

 as they followed the course of the rivers which led 1 1 these 

 gigantic plateaux, inclosed between still higher mountains. Pur- 

 sui ig his researches for several consecutive years. Dr. Regel aid 

 hi- companions have explored the v.illeys of the Panj and of its 

 nu nerous tributaries, penetrating as far south as Sist (37° N. 

 lat ) and as far east as the sources of Shakh-dere, 12° 5 >' E. 

 Ion;. An immense bend to the west of the Panj River beneath 

 Kala-vamar, due to the presence of a high chain of mountains 

 running norih east, and a wide Like, Shiva, 11,000 feet high, 

 situated to the west of this bend, discovered by Dr. Regel, c^m- 

 siderably modify our former maps of the western part of the 

 I'ainir region. But the expedition of last summer, which c in- 

 sisted of MM. Putiata, of the ge leral staff, Ivanoff, g.:ologi-t, 

 and Bendersky, topo^'rapher, throws quite a new light on the 

 still less known eastern Pamir. Ihe expedition has literally 

 covered, with a network of surveys the whole of this reg'oj fro.n 

 39° 3°' ^'- '^'- ' ' 'he sources of the Vakhan-daria, in 37° 10', 

 and from 72° 10' to 75° 20' E. long., penetrating thus t\vi;e t.i 

 the foot of the Mu^tag-aga, or Tagarina Peak. The great Pa:nir 

 chain, between the Shakh-dere and the Upper Panj has be.n 

 cros ed at four pi ices, 100 miles distant, and the Ru,ssian surveys 

 h.ive been brought into connection with those of the pundit 

 M. S. The expedition seems to have established that the 

 pu'idit M. S. was misled, and that the A'i-;u is really the 

 ufiper part of the Murghab. The other results of this expedi- 

 tion are also very important : not only a map on the scale of five 

 Vers s to an inch of the whole of this wide region has been 

 drawn, but also the heights of a v ry great number of pjinis 

 have been determi icd by barometrical and trigonometricil 

 measurement- ; large geological and botanical collections hav.: 

 been brought in, as well as many drawing , and a dictionary of 

 the Shugnan language. Detailed reports will follow, the f jrc- 

 going information being due to a preliminary letter of M. 

 Ivanoff. 



.\ TELtGRAM from Nerchinsk, in Siberia, states that M. 

 Joseph Martin, the French traveller, passed through that place 

 recently on his way to Irkutsk. M. Martin has (says a 

 Renter's telegram) explored the country from the Lena to the 

 Anuir, and has crossed the intervening Stanovi Mountain range 

 lie has collected a large amount of ge 'graphical and geological 

 information concerning the rcgi ai which he has traversed. 



Mr. Sciiuver, the Dutch African explorer, has been murdered 

 at Ijahr Gazal, in South Kor lofan. 



According to the latest number of the Annalen dei- Hydro- 

 graphic iind ma'itimen AhtcorologU the greatest depth of the 

 Atlantic is 8341 metres ; this was found in 19° 39' 10 " N. lat., 

 and 60° 26' 5" W. long. The next greatest depressio 1 of the se.^ 

 bcttom is ill 19° 23' 30" IS". 1 t , and 66° 11' 45" VV. long., where 

 7723 metres were found. 



THE AIMS AND PROSPECTS OF THE STUDY 



OF ANTHROPOLOGY^ 

 'I'llOSE who are present at this meeting need scarcely be 

 •*■ reminded of the importance of the subject w hich is our 

 c mmon bond of union, that which is defined in the prospectus 

 of the Institute as " the promotion of the science of mankind 



» A.ldress delivered at the ann'.ver-ary meeting of the AnthropoKigic.il 

 Institute of Great Er.lain and Ireland, January 22, 1884. by Pr jf. Flower, 

 LL.D., F.R.S.. P.2 S., &c., President. 



by the accumulation of obse."vations bearing 0.1 man's past 

 history and present state in all part* of the globe." 



Bu' those present are a very small frac.io.i indeed of tbe 

 persons in this country to who.n this great subject is, or should 

 be in some one or other of its various divisions, a matter of 

 deep in erest, and as it is possible that the words which it is my 

 privilege and duty as your president to address to you on this 

 occasion may be read by some who are not yet so much coiiversant 

 with the ai-ns of anthropilogy and the means for its cultivation 

 which this Institute afijrds as those who have taken the trouble 

 to come here this evening, I hjpe that you will pardon me if 1 

 bring before yju SJme general considerations, perhaps familiar 

 to all of yju, regarding the scope and value of the science the 

 advancement of which v\ e have at heart. .- 



One of the great difficulties wi:h regard to making aiiilfaro- 

 pology a special subject of stuJy, and devjting a special ca'gan- 

 isation to i's promotion, is the multifarious nature of the 

 branches of knowledge comprehended under the title. This 

 very ambition, which endeavours to include such an extensive 

 range of knowledge, ramifying in all directions, illustrating and 

 receiving ligh' from so many other sciences, appears oftert to 

 overleap itself and give a looseness and indefinitenesys to the 

 aims of the in lividuil or the institu'.ion proposing to ealtivate it. 



The old term ethnology has a far more limited and definite 

 meaning. It is the study of the difi'.-rent peoples or races who 

 compose the varied population of the world, including their 

 physical charocters, their intellec'.ual and moral djvelopment, 

 their languages, social customs, opinions, and beliefs, their 

 origin, history, migrations, and present geographical distribu- 

 tion, a id their relations to each other. Th-se subjects may be 

 treated of under two aspects — first, by a consideratio.i of the 

 general laws by which the modifications in all these characters 

 are determined and regulated ; this i. called general ethnology : 

 secondly, by the study a.^d decription of the races themselve-s, 

 as di-tiiiguished from each other by the special manifestalio.is of 

 these characters in them. To this the term special elhnolc^y, 

 or, more oft;;n, ethnography, is applied. 



E'hnology thus treats of the resemblances and differences of 

 the moJific tions of the hu uan species in their relations to- each 

 other, but anthropology, as now understood, ha. a far wider 

 sc ipe. It treats of manKinI as a whole. It investigates his 

 origi.i and hi. relations to tbe rest of the uoiveise. It invokes 

 the aid of the sciences of zoology, compaiative anatomy, and 

 phy iiology ; and the widsr the range of know ledge met with in 

 other regions of natural structure, and the more abundant the 

 terms of comparison known, the less risk there wi.l be of error 

 in a'.tcmptiiig to esti orate the cistinctioas and resemblances be- 

 tween man and his nearest allies, and fixing his place in the 

 zoological scale. Here we are drawn into contact with an im- 

 mense doaiaiii of knowledge, including a study of all the laws 

 wjich modify the conditions under which organic bodies are 

 manifested, which at first sight seem to have little bearing upon 

 the particular study of man. 



Further.norc, it is not only into man's bodily structure ami its 

 relation to that of the lower animals that we have to deal;, the 

 moral and intellectual side of his nature finds its rudiments in 

 them also, and the difficult study of comparative psychology, 

 now attracting much atte ition, i, an important factor in any 

 complete system of anthropology. 



Ill endeavouring to investigate the origin of mankind as a 

 whole, geology must lend it- assitanc^ to determine the com- 

 p.ira ive ages of the strata in which the evidences of his exist 

 ence are found ; but reearches into his early hi,tory soon trench 

 upon totally different branches of knowledge. In tracing the 

 progress of the race from its most primitive condition, thi; 

 characteristics of its physic il structoi-e and relations wi,th tbe 

 lower animal, rre soon left behind, and it is upon evidence of a 

 kind peculiar to the human species, and by which man is So 

 pre-eminently distinguished from all other living bei.igs, that our 

 conclu.ions mainly rest. The study of the works of our eatUes,! 

 known forefathers, " prehistoric archeology," as it is common y 

 called, although one of the mos' recently developed branches of 

 knowledge, i. now almost a science by itself, and one which i..» 

 receiving a great amou it of attention in all parts of the ci.iliseii 

 woikl. It investigates the origin of all human culture, endea- 

 vours to trace to their c.mmon beginning the sources of all our 

 arts, customs, and history. The difficulty is what to include and 

 where to stop ; as, though the term " prehistoric " may roughly 

 indicate an artificial hne between the p.ovince of the anthropo- 

 logist and that which more legitimately belon_;s to the aichaiolo- 



