68 Address. [Feb., 



reasonable time, regarding the tribes, castes, sects, and occupations of 

 the people of Bengal. The inquiry is being conducted, on lines which 

 have received the approval of European ethnologists, by a large body of 

 official and non-official observers in every district in this Province ; and 

 the attempt has been made to distribute the work of collecting facts in 

 such a manner as to secure that the statements of each observer shall be 

 checked and verified by those of others. 



Starting from this body of recorded facts, it is proposed to endeavour 

 to classify the people of Bengal according to their ethnic affinities, and to 

 separate and distinguish the various race elements which have combined 

 to form the population as we now find it. It is hoped that some light 

 may be thrown upon this obscure subject by the series of anthropolo- 

 gical measurements now being collected in Bengal, the N.-W. Provinces, 

 and the Central Provinces under a scheme recently sanctioned by the 

 Government of Bengal. Special interest attaches to these experiments 

 as being the first attempt on a large scale to apply the anthropometric 

 system elaborated by the French school of anthropologists to the eluci- 

 dation of the ethnological problems so prominent in India. There are, 

 indeed, some reasons for expecting that India, and especially Bengal, 

 may prove to be an exceptionally favourable field for anthropometric re- 

 search. Many races meet in these provinces, and the effect of the caste 

 system has been on the whole to keep them apart, and to preserve the 

 characteristic physical type of each from being obscured or obliterated by 

 the promiscuous crossing which has thrown difficulties in the way of 

 anthropological work in Europe. 



Biology. — The domain of Biology is so extensive and the works and 

 papers dealing with it, even in matters that should prove of interest to 

 us in India, are so numerous and scattered, that I can only barely at- 

 tempt to notice a few of the subjects. It is also to be remembered that, 

 here too, the publications for the first half of 1886 only have reached 

 India in the great majority of cases, and that we can only deal with a 

 portion of the year. It may not be known to many of you that owing 

 to the enlightened advocacy of the project by Surgeon- General Simpson, 

 the Government of India has, during the course of the year, liberally 

 provided for the publication of a new periodical devoted specially to 

 scientific work of a biological character. It is entitled ' Scientific Me- 

 moirs hy Medical Officers of the Army in India? and the first number has 

 appeared containing two papers by a member of our Society Dr. D. D, 

 Cunningham, one ' On the relation of Cholera to the Schizomycete organ- 

 isms,' and the other ' On the presence of peculiar parasitic organisms in 

 the tissue of a specimen of Dehli boil.' A publication of this character 

 should fulfil a very useful end, in encouraging medical men in this 

 country to devote their leisure to science. 



