Ixxxiv 



REPORT — 1897. 



The T.ord Rayleigh, D.C.L., F.R.S. 



(^Chairman). 

 Sir Courtenay Boyle, K.C.B. 

 Sir Andrew Noble, K.C.B., F.R.S. 

 Sir John Wolfe Barry, K.C.B., F.R.S. 

 W. C. Roberts-Austen, Esq., C.B., 



F.R.S. 



Robert Chalmers, Esq., of the 



Treasury. 

 A. W. Riicker, Esq., D.Sc, F.RS. 

 Alexander Siemens, Esq. 

 T. E. Thorpe, Esq., F.R.S. 



have, during the last 



(2) ' That it is of urgent importance to press upon the Government 

 the necessity of establishing a Bureau of Ethnology for Greater Britain, 

 which, by collecting information with regard to the native races within 

 and on the borders of the Empire, will prove of immense value to science 

 and to the Government itself.' 



The Council referred this question to a Committee consisting of the 

 President and General Officers, with Sir John Evans, Sir John Lubbock,. 

 Mr. C. H. Read, and Professor Tylor. The Report of the Committee was 

 as follows : — 



' A central establishment in England, to which would come informa- 

 tion with regard to the habits, beliefs, and methods of government of 

 the primitive peoples now existing would be of great service to science, 

 and of no inconsiderable utility to the Government. 



' 1 . The efforts of the various societies which 

 twenty years, devoted themselves to collecting and publishing ethno- 

 logical information have necessarily produced somewhat unequal, and 

 therefore unsatisfactory, results. Such societies had, of course, to depend 

 upon the reports of explorers, who usually travelled for another purpose 

 than that in which the societies .were interested ; and such reports were 

 naturally unsystematic, the observers being mostly untrained in the 

 science. Again, whole regions would be unrepresented in the transac- 

 tions of the societies, perhaps from the absence of the usual attractions of 

 travellers, e.g. big game or mineral riches. This has been to some extent 

 corrected, at least as to the systematic nature of the reports, by the pub- 

 lication of " Anthropological Notes and Queries " by the Anthropological 

 Institute, with the help of the British Association. 



' If it be admitted that the study of the human race is an important 

 branch of science, no further ai'gument is needed to commend the gather- 

 ing of facts with regard to the conditions under which aboriginal races 

 now live, and, if this work is worth doing, it should be done without 

 delay. With the exception, perhaps, of the negro, it would seem that 

 none of the lower races are capable of lining' side by side with whites. 

 The usual result of such contact is demoralisation, physical decline, and! 

 steady diminution of numbers ; in the case of the Tasmanians, entire 

 disappearance. Such will probably soon be the fate of the Maories, the 

 Andamanese, the North American Indians, and the blacks of Austi-alia. 

 While these exist it is possible to preserve their traditions and folk-lore, 

 and to record their habits of life, their arts, and the like, and such direct 

 evidence is necessarily more valuable than accounts filtered through the 

 recollection of the most intelligent white man. 



' It is scarcely necessary to enlarge upon this point, as no one will 

 seriously question the value to science of such information. But it does 

 seem necessary to urge that no time be lost. 



' 2. As to the benefit to the Government of these inquiries, the history 

 of our relations with native tribes in India and the Colonies is rich in 

 examples. No one who has read of the ways of the African can doubt 



