TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION U. 785 



it was nipped. It is read on a properly graduated scale tliat is disposed as a chord 

 to the arc of oscillation. The praduation at the point where the thread is nipped, 

 shows the number of hundredtlis of a second that had elapsed between the Signal 

 and the Response. The instrument was made for the author by Mr. Groves, 89 

 Bolsover Street, London, W. 



5. The Smithsonian Institulion in the United States of America, and its 

 work relating to Anthropology. By Dr. Thomas Wilson. 



I 



6. The Study of Ethnology in India. By H. H. RiSLET. 



The paper commenced by explaining the special conditions, social and adminis- 

 trative, which make India a readily accessible and peculiarly instructive field for 

 ethnological and, more especially, for anthropological researches. It went on to 

 describe the measures adopted during the last four years under the sanction of the 

 Government of Bengal for a general ethnographic survey of the population 

 (70,000,000) of that province, and for a special anthropometric inquiry into the 



Shysical characteristics of the people of Bengal, the North-Western Provinces, 

 •udh, and the Panjilb. In the course of the anthropometric survey measurements 

 were taken, on the system prescribed by Dr. Paul Topinard, of Paris, and approved 

 by Professor Flower, President of the British Association, of 6,000 persons, repre- 

 senting eighty-nine different tribes and castes. 



Some of the main conclusions which these inquiries indicate were then stated. 

 It was shown that the population of Northern India comprised three distinct tvpee, 

 viz. : — 



I. A leptorhine dolicho-cephalic type of tall stature, fair complexion, and 



high facial angle, apparently corresponding in all points except hair and 

 complexion with the Aryan type as defined by Herr Karl Penka of 

 Vienna. 



II. A platyrhine dolicho-cephalic type of low stature, black or very dark 



complexion, and low facial angle. The wider racial affinities of this 

 type are uncertain, and it is tentatively and conjccturally described as 

 Australioid. 



III. A mesorhine, platyopic, brachycephalic type of low stature, yellowish 

 complexion, and low facial angle, described, in virtue of its low naso- 

 malar index, as Mongoloid. 



The types thus worked out by anthropometric methods are shown to correspond 

 with certain ethnographic groupings independently ascertained. Thus the lepto- 

 rhine group have exogamous subdivisions of the eponymous type ; the platyrhine 

 group have their exogamy on the totem ; while the "brachycephalic group" make- 

 use of a system of personal nicknames for this purpose. In the Aryan and 

 Australioid types the social status of each caste or tribe is found to vary inversely 

 as its nasal index ; tribes with the highest index having the lowest social rank, and 

 vice verMt. In the brachycephalic group social status appears to vary with the 

 cephalic index. 



An attempt was made to deduce from these data a theory of the probable origin 

 of caste, and also to account for the custom of exogamy by the operation of the 

 law of natural selection. 



The concluding part of the paper discussed the practical bearing of ethnology 

 upon certain administrative and social questions in India, such as famine relief; the 

 management of the Kxcise revenue ; the relations of landlord and tenant ; the pro- 

 hibition of widow marriage ; the continual extension and perversion of the disas- 

 trous custom of infant marriage ; and, lastly, upon the remarkable movement 

 known as the National (Jongre.ss, tlio main feature of which was the demaud by 

 natives who have received an English education for the extension of representa- 

 tive institutions to India. 



1889. S E 



