146 REPOKT — 1864). 



Huns, and maintain to this day the habits of the ancient Scythians. Utilizing the 

 few resources at their command, and their wants being few and simple, they are 

 nearly independent of the entire world. Their government is despotic and patri- 

 archal. They pay tribute to their chiefs, who are all subject to the Emperor of 

 China; but, practically, the Mongols enjoy every liberty. M. Michie described 

 Siberia at some length, and, speaking of its inhabitants, says the Slavonic popula- 

 tion are the descendants of exiles, but not necessarily convicts. In the days of 

 serfdom in Russia a proprietor had the privilege of sending a serf into exile without 

 assigning a higher reason than his own will. Hence many persons of good character 

 have been exiled from sheer caprice on the part of their masters. It was also 

 remarked that many exiles rise to eminence. 



On the Atmosj^here, shoiving that there is a difference in its Vital Constituents 

 North and Soi(th of the Equator. By Samuel Mossman. 



Latest News from Mr. S. Baker, the Traveller in Central Africa. 

 By John Petheeick. 



This was an extract from a recent letter of Mr. Petherick, dated Khartum, May 

 23rd, 1864. A number of men belonging to Kurschid Aga, a trader of the Upper 

 Nile, had retm-ned to Khartum from Goudokoro, and had informed Mr. Petlierick 

 that they had accompanied Mr. Baker as far as Kamrasi's palace, near Lake Vic- 

 toria Nyanza, where they had fonned a trading depot, and had left some of their 

 party in charge thereof. Mr. Baker had been well received by the chief Kamrasi, 

 who having supplied him with an escort, had left that place to explore a lake to the 

 westward. The men informed me that, anxious to return to their boats for the 

 pui-pose of supplying the new station with sufficient requirements for the prosecution 

 of trade during the rainy season, they did not wait for Mr. Baker, therefore as they 

 left no boats at Gondokoro, that gentleman will have no chance of returning by the 

 Nile until the termination of the next year's trading campaign, which terminates 

 at that place in the months of May or June 1865. In answer to strict inquiries, 

 Mr. Baker was stated to have been in good health, but to have lost his cattle. 



On the Ethnic Relations of the- Eijuptian Race. By Eeg. Sittaet Poole. 



The author commenced by stating that his object was to inquire what light the 

 ancient Egyptian monuments threw upon the smgle or more than single origin of 

 the Egj'ptian race, and thus to call in the aid of archreology in the examination of 

 one of the most interesting problems of ethnology. He brought forward no evi- 

 dence as to which the general body of Egyptologists were not agjeed. 



Race. — The simplest division into which the races of man could be reduced was 

 black, white, and intermediate. Of the black race, one of the varieties of the lowest 

 type was the African negro ; of the white race, one of the varieties of the highest 

 type the Shemite Arab. These varieties the author selected because the Egyptian 

 monuments show us that, for the last 3000 years, they ha^e been the two most 

 typical neighbours of the Egyptians. The ancient Egyptians constituted a variety 

 of what has been called the Ethiopian race, but might be better called the Lower 

 Nilotic. The modern Egyptians constitute a somewhat different variety. The 

 ancient Egyptians, as known to us from monuments ranging from 4000 to 2G00 

 years ago, were acknowledged by all etlinologists to hold an intermediate place 

 between the Negroes and the Arabs. The physical characteristics of tlie Egyptians 

 were then minutely described, their intemiediate place shown, and the difference of 

 the modem from the ancient Egyptians, in the further departure from the Negro 

 and approach to the Arab, proved. The cause of this difterence was well known 

 to be the great influx of Arabs into Egypt, especially since the Muslim conquest. 

 But, notwithstanding this change, which was less than we shoidd expect, the Negro 

 type still asserted itself in the Egyptians, and a period of 4000 years gave us no 

 parallax. In race they seemed to present the traits of a double ancestry. 



Relff/ion.—The heathen religions might be thus classified : — High nature-wor- 

 ship ; low nature-worship, and use of chai-ms (or Fetishism) ; and magic (or Sha- 

 manism). Shemite idolatry was high nature-worship; Iranian, the same or of 



