TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 151 
overwhelmed the Wendish and Prussian languages in North Germany was the mea- 
sure of the military and political force of the Teutonic Order and the “‘ Rémische 
Reich.”? The Sclavonic of modern Bulgaria was attributed to the action of that 
church of which Cyril and Methodius were the founders; and the Magyar language 
in the Ckomanian districts of Hungary was accounted for by the contented adhesion 
of the Ckomans to the Hungarian constitution. 
The sum of the whole was, that it is not safe to infer from affinity between the 
language of two nations more than this, that there was a time when there existed 
between them civil, religious, or some sort of social relations. Language was the 
product and token of a nation’s political, moral, or intellectual, but not of its phy- 
sical constitution. It would not reveal a people’s genealogy, but its mental and 
social history. Should it ever be proved that all languages were derived from one 
original, the sole valid inference would be, that at some time one sovereign race had 
imposed upon all the rest its own political or social institutions, while the great 
question of the number of races would remain just where it stood. 
A Short Notice of the People of Oude, and of their leading Characteristies. 
By H. M. Greennow. 
The Sepoys of the late Bengal army deserve a short notice. Drawn principally 
from respectable agricultural families in Oude, they were often the younger sons of 
such families. Fine, tall, athletic men, with handsome features generally, and well- 
knit frames, they were the very flower of the youth of Oude. Fond of their homes, 
and having occasional furlough—even if serving in the distant stations of the Bom- 
bay Presidency, or in Burmah—for the purpose of visiting them ; enjoying sufficient 
pay, and the prospect of pension after faithful service ; having, too, certain privi- 
leges of their own, more especially at the Court of Lucknow, before that Court was 
abolished, the Sepoys of Oude were a set of men honoured by their own people and 
trusted by their officers. When led in battle by the latter they were brave and faith- 
ful; on the march or in cantonments they were orderly and obedient; in private 
intercourse they were gentle and polite. Ignorant, bigoted, and prejudiced they 
always were; and to ignorance, bigotry, and prejudice may be in a great measure 
ascribed the ease with which, in the hour of trial, their ears were opened to the voice 
of treason, and they forgot their honour aud their oaths. The author added, that 
the treachery and cruelty which seem to be inherent in the Asiatic nature, and which 
no extent of education had as yet even modified in the natives of India, showed itself 
in the Sepoy character during the late mutiny in an unmistakeable and repulsive 
form. The paper gave various details in connexion with the characteristics of Oude 
and its inhabitants. 
On the Geometrical Projection of two-thirds of the Surface of the Sphere. By 
Colonel H. James, R.Z., F.R.S., Superintendent of the Ordnance Survey. 
Two maps were exhibited which were drawn on this projection, and described by 
Colonel James. The hemisphere was first projected by Hipparchus 200 years before 
Christ, but this is the first time that a geometrical projection of more than a hemi- 
sphere has been made. One of the maps exhibited contained the North circumpolar 
regions, and all Europe, Asia, Africa, and America; the other contained the South 
polar regions and the Pacific Ocean, with a large portion of North and South Ame- 
rica and of Asia. The peculiar advantage of the projection consists in the accurate 
representation which it gives of the relative position of all parts of the earth to each 
other, an advantage which no other projection possesses, and which cannot be ob- 
tained even from the inspection of a globe. 
On the General Distribution of the Varieties of Language and Physical Con- 
formation, with remarks upon the Nature of Ethnological Groups. By 
R. G. Latuam, /.D., F.RS. 
The principle which he held was that, in ethnological investigations, the method 
which ought to be pursued was that of the geologist rather than the historian—the 
