580 Miscellaneous. [Nov. 



We found none of the recent fossils of large animals, of which I 

 have got indifferent specimens from Bhotias which I had hoped to see. 

 They seem to come from more to the westward. An almost unlimited 

 supply of fossil shells may however be got on the passes into Tibet, and 

 some specimens I have got from 18,000 feet at least, probably higher 

 up. 



In the latter part of our trip the thermometer has been as low as 15 

 or 1 6° at sunrise— but it became rapidly colder at last, and we before 

 suffered more from the violence of the sun than from cold. 



Tibetan Type of Mankind. 



To the Secretaries of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 



Gentlemen, — The accompanying remarks upon a series of human 

 skulls, collected by me in the valley of Nepal, and forming part of the 

 general osteological* collection made in the sub-Himalayas and deposit- 

 ed in the British Museum, are from the pen of the celebrated author of 

 the Physical History of Mankind. The novelty and the importance of 

 accurate ethnological research in India, together with the eminent quali- 

 fications of the commentator on these materials, will, I fancy, readily 

 induce the Society to give a place in its Journal to Dr. Prichard's 

 observations, hereto subjoined. Symbhiinath and Sankmiil are places 

 of interment or cremation in the valley of Nepal, and there the skulls 

 were procured : Dr. Prichard rightly conceived that the skull No. 8 is a 

 typical Tibetan, and the skull No. 4, a normal Ne'war, one ; and it is 

 very satisfactory to me to find this gentleman's estimate of the physi- 

 eal character of these races as deduced from the crania so perfectly 

 correspondent with that deduced by myself from the living subjects. 



I am, Gentlemen, &c. 



B. H. Hodgson. 



Darjeeling, November, 1848. 



* A recent letter from Mr. Gray, the Curator of the British Museum, ac- 

 quaints me that this collection, the first of the sort ever deposited there, has prov- 

 ed the nucleus of an osteological collection in the great national Institute of Eng- 

 land, which already rivals that of any Museum in the world, save the French one, in 

 the single department of Fishes. 



