420 



NATURE 



[Sept. 24, 1874 



by miinerous fads adduced from Hungarian, Wogu' 

 Ostiak, and Finnish, that the established notion of 

 Turanianism seems not to be well foimded, and that by 

 the accepted maxims it leads the student into many errors. 

 The author endeavoured to show, consequently, that the 

 same method of studying, which has created the Aryan 

 and Semitic linguistic science, must also be applied 

 to the Turanian languages, and that before such a perfect 

 scientific method is reached, every comparative study of 

 them must be unavailing. 



Perhaps the most interesting paper was entitled " The 

 State of the Chinese Language at the time of the invention 

 of Writing," by Rev. J. Edkins, in which the author treated 

 of the state of opinion as to the time of the invention of 

 Chinese writing, the changes in the language during the 

 last 1,200 years, and from the time of Confucius till A.n. 

 600 ; and laid down the theory that the Chinese characters 

 arc an index to the sound of the words at the time of the 

 invention, and that from them may be learned the phonetic 

 changes that have since taken place ; they are also an 

 index to the nature and extent of the vocabulary then in 

 use, and a measure of the civilisation that had then been 

 attained. 



On Tuesday, the 17th, the Aryan Section sat at the 

 Royal Institution under the presidency of Prof. MiiUer, 

 whose address was listened to with absorbing interest ; 

 we have only space for a few extracts. 



What is the real use of an International Congress of Orien- 

 talists ? asked the president. During the last hundred, and still 

 more during the last fifty years, Oriental studies have contributed 

 more than any other branch of scientific research to change, to 

 purify, to clear, to intensify the inlellectual atmosphere of 

 Europe, and to widen our horizon in all that pertained to the 

 science of man, in history, philology, theology, and philosophy. 

 The East, formerly a land of dreams, of fables and fairies, has 

 become a land of unmistakeable reality ; the curtain between 

 the West and the East has been lifted, and their old forgotlen 

 home stands before tliem again in bright colours and definite 

 outline. Before all, a study of the East has taught the same 

 lesson which the northern nations once learnt in Rome and 

 Athens, that there are other worlds beside our own, that there 

 are other religions, other mythologies, oilier laws, and that the 

 history of philosophy fiom Thales to Schlegel is not the whole 

 history of human thougljt. In all these subjects the East had 

 .supplied parallels, and all that was implied in parallels, viz., the 

 possibility of comp-inng, measuring, and understanding. The 

 omparative spirit was the truly scientific spirit of the age, 

 nay, of all ages. An empirical acquaintance with single 

 facts did not constitute knowledge in the true sense of the 

 word. He advocated the founding of chairs in our Uni- 

 versities for the languages and antiquities of various extinct 

 and existing peoples, and spoke of the great service which 

 properly educated missionaries might render as pioneers of 

 scientific research. What I should like to see is this, he 

 said : I should like to see ten or twenty of our non-resi- 

 dent fellowships, which at present are d .ing more harm than 

 good, assigned to missionary work, to be given to young men 

 who have taken their degice, and who, whethr laymen or 

 clergymen, are willing to work as assistant missionaries on 

 distant stations ; with the distinct understanding that they should 

 devote some of their time to scientific work, whether tiie study 

 of langu.nges, or flowers, or stars, and that they should send 

 liome every year some account of their labours. These men 

 would be like scientific consuls, to whom students at home 

 miglit apply for information and help. Thirdly, Prof. 

 Mullcv continued, I think that Oriental studies have a 

 claim on the colonies and the colonial governments. The 

 English colonies are scattered all over the globe, and many of 

 them in localities where an immense deal of useful scientific 

 work might be done, and would be done with the slightest en- 

 couragement from the local authorities, and something like a 

 systematic supervision on the part of the Cohmial Oflice at home. 

 Now, we should bear in mind that at the present moment some 

 of the tribes living in or near the English colonies in Australia, 

 Polynesia, Africa, and America, are actually dying out, their 

 languages are disappearing, their customs, traditions, and re- 

 ligions will soon be completely swept away. To the student of 

 language the dialect of a savage tribe is as valuable as Sanskrit 



or Hebrew, nay, for the solution of certain problems, more so ; 

 every one of these languages is the gro A'tli of thousands and 

 thousands of years, the workmanship of millions and millions 

 of human beings. If they were now lueserved they might here- 

 after fill the most critical gaps in the history of the human race. 

 And this is not all. The study of savage tribes has assumed a 

 new interest of late, when the question of the exact relation of 

 man to the rest of the animal kingdom has again roused the 

 passions, not only of scientific inquirers, but also of the public at 

 large. Now, what is wanted for the solution of this question is 

 more facts and fewer theories, and these facts can only be gained 

 by a patient study of the lowest races of mankind. 



At Dr. liirch's, who gave a reception in the afternoon 

 at his ofticial residence, an agreeable surprise awaited the 

 guests. A secretary of legation had just arrived from the 

 French Embassy, bearing an official and holograph letter 

 to Dr. Birch from the Comte de Jarnac, and a handsome 

 jewel-box, containing the rare and exceedingly honourable 

 decoration of the Golden Palm Ilranches, or, to speak 

 more correctly, the order of " Officier de I'lnstruction 

 Publicjue," a decoration only conferred upon persons of 

 the highest scientific and literary merit, and confined to 

 ten personages only. 



The Hamitic Section assembled in the evening at the 

 rooms of the Society of Biblical Architecture, Conduit 

 Street. The most interesting paper was " On the 

 Place of the Lake or Sea passed by the Israelites at the 

 Exodus,'' by his Excellency Prof Brugsch, in French. 

 'I'he author was listened to with rapt attention as he 

 endeavoured to demonstrate that the Hebrews did not 

 really cross the Red Sea, but between the Bitter Lakes 

 lying to the north of the sea. This paper will be printed. 



On Friday, the iSth, the Aryan and Archctological Sec- 

 lions met, and in each valuable papers were read. 



Ill the afternoon of Saturday, the Ethnological Section, 

 under the presidency of Prof Owen, C.B., F.R.S., 

 .Superintendent of the Natural History Collections in the 

 British Museum, met at the rooms of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society, where a very large attendance was gathered to 

 hear the interesting addresses of the distinguished 

 president. 



In illustration of contributions to the physical elements of 

 ethnology. Prof. Owen referred to the five quarto volumes 

 of photographic illustrations, with descriptions of the various 

 castes, outcasts, traders and artisans, soldiers, outlaws, and 

 primitive hill tribes of Hindoslan, issued by the India 

 Office, under the editorial care of Sir John William Kaye 

 and Dr. Forbes Watson. To Dr. Mouatt, when in the 

 Indian service. Prof Owen had first been indebted for the ma- 

 terials of a report on the natives of the Andaman Islands, published 

 by the British Association in 1861. The language of tliat dwarf 

 Nigrilo race had been well studied by Mr. Homfray, and additional 

 information had been recorded by other scientific Indian officers, as 

 by Surgeon Francis Day and the lamented P. .Stoliczka. In a brief 

 summary of present knowledgeof the Nigiito and Papuan tribes the 

 president laid stress upon the geologic.il and collateral evidences 

 of iheir origin on land trusts related in time to recent 

 geological changes, to a period vastly remote in relation to 

 historical time. Their interest to the ethnologist was the reten- 

 tion by certain, now insulated, groups of Nigiitos, of an early 

 - he would not say primitive — condition of humanity, like those 

 of some pre-historic races in Europe. The shell-mounds of the 

 Andaman Islands, e.g., were compared willi the "kitchen- 

 middens," on North European shores. The Nigritos of the 

 Andamans, like those of New Guinea, waged an unmitigated, 

 uncompromising hostility, by force and fraud, against invaders. 

 .Such disposition was comparable to that which the brute species 

 in their wild state bear to man. These Nigritos seem to realise 

 instinctively their fate through contact with a higher race. 

 Since the establishment of a penal settlement in the smaller of the 

 Andaman Islands;, kindly disposed ladies liave taken in hand 

 Miucopie girls ; some swam back to the larger islands, others, 

 retained and taught to the age of puberty, were returned to their 

 tribe. Theyiforthwith resumed its condition and cast off their 

 garments. The men girt the abdomen, against jiaugs of hunger, 

 with a flexible tendril ; but in other respects these dwarf Nigritos 

 exhibit quite a prelapsarian, or quadrumanous, unconsciousness 



