Proceedings of the British Association. 257 



gard to the examination of the distribution of extinct forms of 

 animals and vegetables, would furnish a mode of investigation of the 

 greatest value. — Mr. C. C. Babington stated, that if the presumed 

 geological phenomena of Prof. Forbes could be granted to have taken 

 place, that would be a strong argument in favour of the hypothesis 

 he had adopted. The great difficulty in the way of supposing the 

 creation of but one individual of a species was their frequent distri- 

 bution over various parts of the world. — Prof. Forbes, in reply, stat- 

 ed that if the hypothesis of a single pair or an individual of each 

 species were not granted, there was an end to all palaeontology and 

 its value in geological inquiry. If the hypothesis of descent be not 

 true, then the deduction of geologists from it are erroneous. 



Friday. 

 D.— Sub-section, ETHNOLOGY. 



Admiral Sir C. Malcolm in the chair. 



Dr. R. G. Latham ' On the Ethnography of the American Lan- 

 guages.' — He opened by explaining the extent of the Esquimaux 

 tongues, by pointing out the character of their locality as being the 

 one that we should naturally expect to find transitional to the Fo 

 language of America and Asia, stated, however, that they had been 

 cut off on both sides by broad lines of separation. These lines he 

 considered exaggerated. Between them and the Athabascan* between 

 the Athabascan and Cooloch, between the Cooloch and Oregon, 

 between the Oregon and Californian, he could draw no definite lines. 

 The Californian passed into the Mexican, the Mexican into those of 

 South America. On the other hand the Curile, Corean, and Ja- 

 panese tongues were akin to the Esquimaux, so were the Siberian. 

 He was satisfied that the common view was the true one ; viz. that 

 the Esquimaux languages connected the Old and New Worlds. He 

 further added that the glossarial affinities of the Polysynthetic ton- 

 gues were as real as their grammatical analogies. 



The American Minister remarked, that the divisions of Dr. Latham 

 did not agree with those recognized by the American scholars. He 

 observed that the languages of the United States were classed in 

 eight divisions ; that between these there was certainly a general 

 affinity such as between the more distant languages of the Old 



