968 REPORT—1890, 
The value of the small Handbook for Travellers, issued under the title of 
‘ Anthropological Notes and Queries,’ has been proved by the necessity for a new edi- 
tion, towards which the British Association has made a grant. Some delay in the 
publication of the new issue has taken place, but I hope that the report of the Com- 
mittee in charge of the work may give assurance of the book being now in a forward 
state. 
The feasibility of assigning trustworthy marks for physical qualifications in can- 
didates for posts either in the military or civil departments of the State has now 
for some time been attracting more or less of public attention, and the subject has 
been taken up by the Council of this Association. The result of their commu- 
nications on this subject with the Government has been made known in their 
Report, and I need not enter into the history of the correspondence that has 
passed upon the question. Whatever course may at the present time be adopted, 
we may, I think, feel confident that eventually due weight will have to be attached 
to physical capacity in selection for appointments in the military branch of the 
public service, for which, indeed, at the present time a medical examination has to be 
passed. Thanks to the ingenuity of Mr. Francis Galton and others, we have now 
instruments at our command, not only for testing muscular force, breathing 
capacity, and other bodily characteristics, but also for ascertaining the closeness 
and rapidity of connection between the organs of seeing and hearing, and the action 
of the muscles required to be brought into play. In these experiments nervousness 
no doubt is to some extent a factor, but perhaps the rough and ready test of the 
South American commander was for ascertaining the presence or absence of 
nervousness even more effective. When promotion of some officer was about to be 
made upon the field, the general caused all the possible candidates to be arranged 
around him, each armed with a flint and steel and a cigarette, and he who first 
was satisfactorily smoking was promoted then and there. 
Connected with the question of general physical capacity is that of the proper 
appreciation of colours, the absence of which is a fruitful source of danger, both by 
land and at sea. It is, indeed, impossible to say how often an apparently 
inexplicable accident may not have arisen from some form of colour-blindness, 
such as the inability to distinguish red from green, in a person in charge of a ship, 
a train, or of points on a railway. ‘True, there are some forms of examination to 
be gone through, both by mariners and railway officials, with the view of testing 
their powers and correctness of vision; but it is very doubtful whether the tests 
employed or the manner in which the examinations are conducted can be regarded 
as in all respects satisfactory. For the purpose of investigating the phenomena, 
and, if possible, the physical causes of colour-blindness and allied defects of vision, 
and also with the view of suggesting improvements in the methods of determining 
the existence of such defects in candidates for maritime or railway employment, 
the Council of the Royal Society has appointed a Special Committee. Its labours, 
however, are not yet finished, and no report has hitherto been received from the 
Committee. I mention the subject as one in which all anthropologists will be 
interested, and the importence of which must be universally acknowledged. The 
most singular feature in the case is that the subject, though carefully investigated 
by several private inquirers, should have waited so long before being submitted to 
some public or quasi-public body for investigation. 
The subjects of an anthropological survey of the tribes and castes in our Indian 
possessions, and of the continued investigation of the habits, customs, and physical 
characteristics of the North-Western tribes of the Dominion of Canada, were both 
recommended jor consideration to the Council of this Association by the General 
Committee at the meeting at Newcastle. We have heard from the report 
of the Council what has been done in the matter. The rapidity with which the 
various native tribes in different parts of the world are either modified, or in some 
cases exterminated, affords a strong argument for their characteristics, both 
physical and mental, being investigated without delay. 
There are, indeed, now but few parts of the world the inhabitants of which have 
not, through the enterprise of travellers, been brought more or less completely 
within our knowledge, Even the centre of the dark African continent promises to 
