AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 89 



CJ.ASSIFICATION OF THE HUMAN KACE. BY THE REV. PROF. ANDERSON, OF ROGHESTEEo 



This subject was introduced to the notice of the Section with a view of shewing 

 the importance of some comprehensible classification of the varieties of the human 

 race, in order to the correct observation of those facts upon -which one school of 

 ethnologists founded their opinion that mankind consisted of several species, or of 

 one species planted in several centres of creation. To illustrate the difficulties in 

 the way of classification, Prof. Anderson mentioned that Virey divided the race into 

 two species — the white and the yellow ; the black and the brown. But many diffi- 

 culties interfere with the classification. Take, for instance, the Arabians — the 

 purest of the Semitic races — and he found the Arab in one place with light hair 

 and blue eyes, while in the hot regions of the desert the Arab very nearly 

 approached the Negro. The same changes occurred in the Hindoos and great 

 Iranian races, as they descended from the mountains to the hot deltas of the rivers 

 and to the sea coast. This was also to be remarked in Africa ; so that the distinc- 

 tion into white and yellow, black and brown, formed no really useful classification. 

 Jacquenot spoke of three species of men ; Dumoulin of eleven, of which the first 

 was the Cclto-Scyth Arab, the meaning of which he could not divine. Colonel St. 

 Vincent made eleven species; and Luke Burke, the editor of the Ethnologist, 

 made sixty-three ; while Dr. Morton's posthumous works made twenty families, 

 each of which he plainly looked on as a distinct species. These could not all be right. 

 Again, Agassiz considered that there were at least eight, and perhaps a thousand 

 centres of creation, though there was but one species ; but there were many diffi- 

 culties about that theory, as? it would require a new miracle of creation for each 

 supposed centre ; and it was a good rule in physics not to allow new creations 

 except where they were absolutely required. He concluded by saying that he 

 thought the proper attitude for Ethnologists at present was to hold all theories as 

 provisional, keeping themselves ready to give an unprejudiced consideration to 

 new facts whenever they appeared. 



ON THE BREAKS IN THE SUCCESSION OF LIFE IN THE BRITISH ROCKS. BY PROF. A. 



C. RAMSAY. 



Professor Ramsay, of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, who attended the 

 meeting as the representative of the London Geological Society, described the 

 physical breaks, and the breaks in the succession of life, which appear to be 

 established by the palseontological study of the British rocks. In illustration he 

 exhibited a chart to show the fossiliferous strata of Great Britain in their chrono- 

 logical order, and the number of genera and species of fossils found in each, as 

 well as the number which pass from one series to the next above. He then dis- 

 cussed the probable causes at work to produce the phenomena under consideration, 

 and expressed his belief that the extinction of the animal and vegetable species of 

 fossils was owing to physical changes similar to those which are constantly in 

 operation at the present time. 



