166 Louis Figuier, [April. 



while they" are separated by a group of people of a uracil darker 

 colour. The sirnilarity of tint has led many travellers in the one 

 area to jump fee flic : inclusion that the people of the other are: 

 which they hare little knowledge, are the same race. It unfortunately 

 happens that not a single traveller appears to l:e well acquainted 

 with both races, and for that reason their opinions as to the 

 si m ilarity of the two should be received with great doubt. If, on 

 the contrary, my account of the physical and mental ehara. 

 istics of the Malays be taken as correct (and I resided among 

 them for eight years), and if it be compared with that of the 

 Polynesian* given by Cook, and by recent travellers and mis- 

 sionaries, the din will be seen to be so striking 

 radical, that all idea of their being the same race must be gr 

 up. In the case of the Malays in particular, much confusion has 

 arisen from travellers having confounded with them the many 

 lea of distinct race which inhabit the eastern parts of the 

 Malayan Archipelago, such as the Timorese, the mountaineers of 

 CeraiQ and Gilolo, and of the small islands near New Guinea ; and 

 this mistake has been rendered excusable by the number of half- 

 breeds between the two races to be found everywhere. Many of 

 these people are, perhaps, allied to the Polynesians.* but they are 

 certainly not Malays, who are essentially a Mongol race, with many 

 of the Mongol characteristics very strongly marked. The Papuans 

 of Xew Guinea form the extreme type of another and a wi 

 different race, and all the evidence _ 3 to show that in every 

 characteristic except colour, the Polynesians are nearer to the 

 Papuans than they are : the Malaya, although it is not improbable 

 that they are equally distinct from both. 



IT. LOUIS FIG-ITEE. 



There are two distinct classes of scientific writers whose labours 

 tend to raise the intelligence of our age: those who, by the pub- 

 lication of original researches (usually in the Transactions of 

 Scientific Societies, or in the pages of technical journals), constitute 

 the pioneers of scientific progress, and by their industry extend our 

 knowledge of the laws of nature ; and those again, who, appreciating 

 the valur ;: aodb original researches, and feeling the necessity for 

 diffusing knowledge amongst the masses in a form in which it will 

 be best understood by them, bring their literary powers to bear in 

 a noble cause, and render comprehensible to the multitude laws and 

 iacts which would otherwise be appreciated only by the limited circle 

 of what we are accustomed to call u Savans." Each of these two 



* The mountaineers of Gilolo and Ceram are perhaps true outliers of the 



Polynesians, and may represent the effect of that westerly migration from Samoa, of 

 which Mr. Pritehard speaks. 



