1865.] Ethnology. 91 



So far the papers discussed during the present session before the 

 Ethnological Society of London have been mostly papers previously 

 read at the Bath Meeting of the British Association, and have con- 

 tained neither novel nor very important matter. The most suggestive 

 paper has undoubtedly been one of Mr. Prideaux, " On the Principles 

 of Ethnology," in which he pointedly draws attention to the unsatis- 

 factory condition of terms and first principles, and does not shrink 

 from declaring that even " the foundation-stone of a durable and scien- 

 tific edifice has yet to be laid." Nor does he leave the subject as 

 Ethnological subjects are too often left, with laments only of the want 

 of something better, but he shows — if not a certain remedy — at least 

 how an amelioration of matters may be begun in a proposed decisive 

 attention to the characteristics of existing races. 



Just as geologists, by studying existing phenomena and living 

 creatures, have interpreted the phenomena of past ages and past crea- 

 tions of organized beings, so he would have the foundations of the in- 

 terpretation of mankind's past history and development rooted in the 

 phenomena of the living human beings swarming over every part of 

 our sunlit globe, and contemporaries of ourselves. Amidst all the 

 amalgamation of races, he argues, that have taken place, nothing is 

 more certain than that types of great antiquity are always present, and 

 in great numbers and very tolerable purity, amongst our populations. 

 No indiscriminate blending of blood takes place, producing an homo- 

 geneous offspring according to the numerical proportions, or the rela- 

 tive vital force of the component races, and thus extinguishing the 

 recurrence of the original types. But on the other hand we cannot 

 take upon ourselves to say that this can never be effected in a long 

 period of time in a mixed race, subjected to the same climatic condi- 

 tions. • The first task to be undertaken, in order to conquer a solid 

 basis for the science, is the recognition and identification of existing 

 types by which we are surrounded. This accomplished, the study of 

 the phenomena, presented by living contemporaneous populations, 

 follows next. What changes are being effected ? what evolutions are 

 in progress ? what laws have governed the production of the type- 

 forms recognized amongst them ? In the answers to these questions 

 will most probably be found the key to the history and transmutations 

 of the past. 



Another paper deserves also some special mention. Dr. Shortt's 

 " account of some rude tribes, supposed to be Aborigines of Southern 

 India." Such accounts given in anything like an intelligible form, are 

 always interesting, especially when habits, legends, and personal inci- 

 dents are graphically detailed ; but when features, weight, stature, and 

 measurements are recorded with precision, the data become valuable 

 additions to the general stock of useable and comparable information. 



In these latter particulars, Dr. Shortt always exhibits such praise- 

 worthy order and care, as to make us always feel certain of his facts, 

 although we may sometimes feel doubtful of his comparisons, as, for 

 example, his association of the Yenadis, and other rude tribes of 

 Southern India, with the Mongolian type. Of the several tribes 

 noticed by him in this paper, the most interesting are the Iroolcrs of 



