4 Records of the Indian Museum. [Vol.. XXIII, 1922.] 



several assistants, among whom I may mention in particular my 

 late laboratory assistant Mr. J. Caunter, to whom I was indebted 

 for obtaining many of my subjects. Dr. F. H. Gravely and 

 Dr. K. S. Roy devoted much time and labour to helping me. 

 The investigations were conducted in a less systematic manner 

 than I would have wished, partly because they were in themselves 

 of the nature of an experiment and I was perpetually attempting 

 to discover more satisfactory methods, and partly because they 

 had to be carried out at odd times, chiefly on vSundays and holi- 

 days, when subjects were available. The measurements that 

 have been utilised by Prof. Mahalanobis were, however, made on 

 one system and with the same instruments. The s} T stem was that 

 recommended in the British Association's hand-book on anthro- 

 pology and the instruments were the et Anthropometer ' ' (112) and 

 " Instrumentantascher ' ' (203) supplied by Hermann of Zurich. 



Prof. Mahalanobis has, in my opinion wisely, decided to 

 treat the measurements as accurate only within 2 mm. He notes 

 a tendency on my part to favour even numbers. Of this I was 

 barely conscious at the time, but on attempting to reconstruct 

 the process in my mind I seem to recollect that when I was not 

 quite sure of a measurement within a millimetre, I had a preju- 

 dice in favour of even numbers. I never thought it possible to 

 measure to within less than a millimetre. It is curious, however, 

 that this prejudice seems to have communicated itself to my assis- 

 tants, by several of whom the measurements were occasionally 

 taken while I noted them down. That it has done so is evidence 

 at any rate of uniformity of method. 



The measurements, discussed without knowledge of mathe- 

 matics, seemed to me so unsatisfactory that I had practically 

 decided to reject them altogether, until I was so fortunate as to 

 get into touch with Prof. Mahalanobis at the Nagpur meeting of 

 the Indian Science Congress and he offered to analyse them 

 statistically. The results he has already obtained seem to justify 

 their publication, and to emphasize the value of co-operation and 

 co-ordination of different branches of scientific work in anthro- 

 pology, without which, in my opinion, further progress in most 

 branches of biology has become impossible. 



The special importance of investigations conducted on the 



agio-Indians lies in the fact that although we may not be able 



to trace out the history of any one family, we know that the 



whole race, if such it may be called, has arisen practically within 



the last 200 years by the admixture of other pre-existing races. 



After Prof. Mahalanobis has discussed 1113' measurements on 



mathematic lines, I hope to have an opportunity of considering 



other aspects of the somatology of this interesting community 



We hope thus to throw some light on the question of the origin of 



human races by fusion. _, . 



N. Annandalk, 



Director t Zoological Surrey 0/ India } 

 Calcutta. 



