150 REPORT—1858. 
On the Configuration of the Surface of the Earth. 
By the Rev. J. Dincie. 
Assuming, on the usual grounds, that the earth is a body that has cooled down 
from a state of incandescence, the author pointed out how the natural consequences 
of that hypothesis are distinctly traceable in the present configuration of the earth, 
so as to afford a general sketch of its history. From the relations which the moun- 
tain systems bear to each other and to the land, he inferred that the germs of them 
had originated about the same time in the earliest period of the earth’s crust, The 
currents of a primitive ocean, as determined by known physical laws and modified by 
the mountain systems already formed, appeared to him necessarily to have led to the 
formation of the great continents in their present position, and when taken in con- 
nexion with the yertical forces operating from beneath, to account for all their geo- 
graphical and geological features so far as they have hitherto been investigated, 
Language no Test of Race. By the Rey. G. C. GELDART. 
First, in a negative point of view, it was attempted to show that language is too 
uncertain an ethnological test to be of any practical value. This was instanced by 
the complete discrepancy which exists at this moment between the races and the 
languages of the British Isles. Cumberland and Cornwall, for example, in language, 
agree with London, and disagree with Wales; while, as to race, it is directly the 
reverse. Also, by the agreement in speech, notwithstanding the wide disconnexion 
of race between the Israelites and the Canaanites—the genuine Arabs and the Arabic- 
speaking populations in Asia and Africa—the Turks and the Greek-Christians in 
Anatolia—the Romans and their subjects in Spain, Gaul, Etruria, &c.—the Germans 
and the Sclayonians now absorbed by them in Prussia and North Germany—the 
Bulgarians and the Sclavonians,—the Magyars and the Ckomanians—and by many 
similar examples; the accumulative evidence of all amounted to this, that since in 
so many cases where the ethnological indications of language can be compared with 
the actual testimony of history, the latter completely contradicts the former, ‘‘a 
common language is’? not even “prima facie evidence in favour of a common 
lineage,” 
It iis remarked that the probability of language being a fallacious test of race 
must increase in direct proportion to the complexity of the particular race’s expe- 
riences. But since it is plain that without the aid of history we can never calcu- 
late the degree of this complexity (from the fact that all barbarous nations show 
signs of decadence from a lost civilization), there is no more ground in the case of 
the most savage than of the most civilized race, to assume that the existing language 
is the original one. In Australia, e. g., the native languages are radically one; but 
this forms no conclusive proof of the unity of the races, in the absence of historical 
evidence of this one language having been in primitive times common to them all. 
Its diffusion may very possibly be the result of artificial influences of which no re- 
cord exists. 
Secondly, in a positive point of view, it was shown that in all the instances above 
cited, there had taken place between the races, a close assimilation of (1) Political, 
(2) Religious, (3) Intellectual, or (4) general Social relations, or of any, or all of 
these combined; and it was suggested that it is such an assimilation, and not unity 
of race, that unity in language rightly typifies. The principle was applied in detail. 
Thus, in Cumberland and Cornwall, the assimilation in language with London was 
exhibited as the result of a loss of that national feeling, the permanence of which in 
Wales has preserved the provincial Celtic; and not as the sign of a greater com- 
mixture of races in the two former districts than in the last. The community of 
language between the Abrahamide and the Canaanites was referred to their social 
intercourse from the time of Abraham’s migration into Canaan, until Jacob’s descent 
into Egypt. The prevalence of Arabic or Turkish, in countries where Islam is domi- 
nant, represented the extent to which the Mahometan conquest has affected the 
habits and institutions of its subjects. The existence of the Neo-Latin languages 
was interpreted as a mark of the eagerness of the Roman provincial to obtain the 
‘ civitas,” and with it to adopt the ‘ Latinitas.” The Teutonic speech which has 
