136 REPORT—1863. 
common tongue, it will of course follow that the people speaking the Gaelic lan- 
guage, whether of Ireland or of Scotland, had no share in the great enterprises of the 
eople known to the Romans as Gauls. The people who established themselves 
in Northern Italy, who captured Rome, overran and plundered Greece, and, under 
the name of Galatians, established themselves in Asia Minor, were the Celts— 
men who spoke the same language which is now spoken in Wales and Brittany, 
although it is not likely that the inhabitants of these poor and remote countries 
had any share in these remoter enterprises.” 
A few Notes on Sir Charles Lyell’s ‘ Antiquity of Man.’ 
By Joun Crawrourp, F.R.S. 
The author agrees entirely with Sir Charles Lyell in his conclusion that the ex- 
istence of the human race is of a far higher antiquity than is popularly believed, and 
he dissents from him only on the question of the commutation of species, confining 
himself here to Sir Charles’s arguments drawn from language and the im gined 
transition of the family of the apes into man, and hence the unity of i 
On the subject of language, Sir Charles Lyell, adopting the Aryan or Indo-Ger- 
manic theory as expounded by Professor Max Miiller, gives it as his opinion that 
no language has been known to have endured beyond 1000 years ; and in opposition 
to this opinion, the author of the paper quotes the Arabic, which, dating from the 
ublication of the Koran to the present time, has lasted for 1240 years, while the 
reek language, reckoning from the time of Homer to our own days, has endured, 
with small change, for 2600 years; he further adds that, when there is no change 
in the frame of society, as among the Australians, a language may last even for 
thousands of years. On the question of the transmutation of the apes into man, 
Sir Charles Lyell adopts the opinions of the learned and ingenious Professor Huxley, 
who, while he adopts the theory that man is a direct transition from the anthropoid 
monkeys, takes special pains to guard himself from concluding that there is any 
other than a certain structural resemblance between them. ‘ Let me, then, take 
this opportunity,” says he, “of distinctly asserting that the differences are great 
and significant ; that every bone of a Gorilla bears marks by which it may be dis- 
tinguished from the corresponding bones of a man; and that in the present crea- 
tion, at any rate, no intermediate link bridges over the gap between Homo and 
Troglodytes. At the same time, no one is more strongly convinced than I am of 
the vastness of the gulf between civilized man and the brutes, or is more certain 
that, whether from them or not, he is assuredly not of them. No one is less dis- 
posed to think lightly of the present dignity, or despairingly of the future hopes, 
of the only consciously intelligent denizen of this world.” “ The monkeys, then,” 
concludes the author of the paper, “ have an outward and even a structural resem- 
blance to man beyond all other animals, and that is all; but why nature has be- 
stowed upon them this similarity is a mystery beyond our understanding.” 
On a Human Cranium from Amiens. By Henry Duckworth, F.G.S. 
This was a short communication relating to the discovery of a human skull, in 
the summer of 1861, whilst on a visit to the quarries of St. Acheul. 1t was obtained 
from the deposit known to the workmen as the “ Découyert” bed, its depth from 
the surface being about six feet. 
Ethnology of Eastern Mantchuria. By Captain Frenne. 
From Tientsin (North China) to the Capital of Mantchu Tartary. 
By Captain G. Fiemme. 
The paper described a journey performed by the author in company with Mr. 
Meakin in 1861. The travellers did not adopt the Chinese dress, as they were 
advised to do, believing that it was not only difficult to maintain the disguise— 
the discovery of which might lead to consequences of a very serious nature—but 
that they would consult their own safety, and produce a good impression in the 
