REPORT ON A SERIES OP NEPALESE SKULLS. 



95 



Those masses appear partially rounded, but broken in their fall, and of an 

 earthy texture like baked clay, easily broken. 



The meteorite which fell at Launton, 1840, preserved in the collection of 

 Dr. Lee, at Hartwell House, is of a somewhat angular form, but having all 

 its edges and corners rounded : an exact model of it exists in the Ashmolean 

 Museum, Oxford. 



No. 4 Extract from the communication of Mr. F. Morton. — The August 



meteors at Wrottesley, 1859 : — 



" The display of meteors during the night was very grand. During an 

 hour, from l h 10 m a.m. to 2 h 10 m a.m., 72 were counted in all parts of the 

 heavens, the majority of which were followed by trains of sparks. The pre- 

 vailing direction of their flight was towards the N.W. During the next half- 

 hour at least 40 were seen, but the number was not accurately noted. A 

 great number of those observed (from 25 to 30) were very fine, larger in 

 fact than Capella or a Lyras, which were then visible, several being larger 

 than Venus when brightest. Though two observers were on the look-out 

 together, no meteor was counted twice. 



"Aug. 23, at l h 13 m a.m., the opening in the equatorial dome being E.S.E., 

 a brilliant light was seen reflected from the western wall. This must have 

 been caused by a very fine meteor, as the room was strongly illuminated at 

 the time by the moon. Local mean solar time has been used throughout." 



Report on a Series of Skulls of various Tribes of Mankind inhabiting 

 Nepal, collected, and presented to the British Museum, by Bryan 

 H. Hodgson, Esq., late Resident in Nepal, fyc. §c. By Professor 

 Owen, F.R.S., Superintendent of the Natural History Departments 

 in the British Museum. 

 Mr. B. H. Hodgson, who has contributed an important element to the an- 

 cient history of India by his successful labours in unrolling the Buddhist re- 

 cords and deciphering the Buddhist inscriptions of Nepal*, has established 

 an additional claim to the gratitude of the ethnologist by the assiduity with 

 which he has collected the skulls of the various tribes or races of that part 

 of the Indian continent. 



This collection forms part of a still more extensive series of objects of Ne- 

 palese Natural History, contributed by the liberality of Mr. Hodgson to the 

 National Collections. 



The human crania, most of them adult, are upwards of 90 in number, and 

 belong to the following 



Tribes. 



No. of Skulls. 



Newar 12 



Lepcha 9 



Bhotia 9 



Murmi 7 



Magar 5 



SUNWAR 6 



LlMBU 5 



KlRANTI 5 



GURUNG 4 



No. of Skulls. 



Uraon 3 



Shopa 2 



SOKPA 1 



DlMAL 1 



Bodo 1 



Kocch 2 



Khampa 1 



Bagnath 2 



Hill-men 2 



No. of Skulls. 

 1 

 1 



Nepal (proper) . . . 



Bengal (Fakir) ... 



Ganges (man of the 

 plains) 



Lowlands (caste un- 

 known) 



10 



90 



* Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in the volume on General Subjects of Hima- 

 layan Ethnology. 



