TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 99 



reiy large series of pictures of great beaut}-, wliicli -R-ould he exhibited to tlie Sec- 

 tion. The useful laboiu's of the Palestine Exploration Fund were next noticed, 

 and aftei-wards the minute and accurate siu-ve5s made by Mr. W. Chandless on the 

 river Purus, in South America, and also the recent expedition into the interior of 

 Australia imdertaken for the purpose of discovering- remains of the imfortimate 

 Leichhardt expedition. This search, so munificently supported by several of the 

 Australian governments and by Pier jNIajestj^ the Queen, had not yet accomplished 

 much. A severe drought had impeded the progress of the searching party ; but 

 they had succeeded in traversing the continent to the banks of the Flinders river, 

 and examined the trees on which the L's were cut at a spot which was supposed 

 to be the last halting-place of the lost explorers. Now that settlements are formed 

 along the whole east coast of Australia, at short distances from each other, it was 

 very desirable that exact registers should be established at various points, so as to 

 determine whether there be any appreciable change in the relative levels of land 

 and water along the coast, and thus throw light on an interesting question in phy- 

 sical geography, nameh', the gradual subsidence of the Pacific coasts of Australia. 

 After noticing the great extent of unknown land, especially in Afiica and New 

 Guinea, yet remaining to be explored, the President concluded by a review of the 

 recent great strides made in the science of ethnology since the discovery of stone 

 implements in the alluvial deposits of St. Acheul. We here see the vsddest field 

 opening for speculation and inquiry. There was a tendency with many ethnolo- 

 gists in their inquiries to disparage the force of the evidence" afforded by language 

 as a key to the histoiy and the relationship of the diflerent sections of mankind to 

 each other. Yet it was impossible to gainsay the absolute correlation that exists 

 between cei-tain organic forms of speech and some of the great typical divisions of 

 man. Language, in his opinion, constitutes one of the most permanent and in- 

 delible tests of race, and no system of ethnology could dispense with tlie aid of 

 philology. The early xitterances of man have become stamped with a certain degree 

 of immortality. The Celtic and the Hindoo, the early Persian, the Hellenic and 

 Latin races betray the community of their origin in the dialectic affinities of the 

 tongues they speak. On the baulcs of the Tigris and the Euphrates the Arab employs 

 a language which is the lineal descendant, with few fimdamental changes, of that 

 spoken by his forefathers in the days of the Hebrew patriarchs ; whilst in the 

 Semitic names scattered along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and eastern 

 coast of Africa, we have imerring indications of the progress and settlements of 

 early Semitic tribes. However plastic and evanescent, under certain local con- 

 ditions, characteristic forms of speech may be, they still afford, in the history of 

 man, the key to many of the vicissitudes that liave marked his migi-ations, his con- 

 quests, his religion, his social polity, the measure of many of the attributes by 

 which as an individual or a race he is distinguished from his fellow men. 



On the Physical Geography of the Eastern Part of the Crimea and the 

 Peninsula of Taman. By Prof. Ansteb, F.R.S. 

 The peninsula of Taman stretches out west beyond the whole range of the 

 Caucasus ; but it would only be a delta of the Kuban were it not for the very re- 

 markable phenomena due to recent volcanic agencj' which it exhibits. Tliese con- 

 sist of a series of conical hills of mud, ranging for many miles, and connecting the 

 volcanic district of Tiflis with the Putrid Sea, which constantly emits sulphurous 

 fumes. The physical condition of this part of Europe is quite exceptional, the 

 phenomena extending for a distance of 1000 miles. The conical hills of Taman are 

 about 2-50 feet high, and extend for about thirty miles. There is a constant shift- 

 ing of the actual points of eruption. The physical geography of the north-eastern 

 shores of the Black Sea and its dependencies is certainly modified by these curious 

 phenomena. They produce hills where we should otherwise have a dead flat, and 

 the land is for tlie most part barren and improfitable. Continuous but very slow 

 subterranean action along this line is consistent with what we know concerning the 

 axis of elevation that has for a very long geological period affected the land of the 

 eastern hemisphere. All that part of the world has been elevated, and pai-ts of it 

 have been depressed in the later periods. The great plains of Europe and Asia 

 •were covered by the sea during a time comparatively recent, and the elevation has 



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