276 Proceedings of the British Association, 



pend upon the goodness of the Daguerreotype, and the success of the 

 etching. M. Claudet has fully established the successful application 

 of this process to the purposes of illustrating Natural History, by 

 copying from Nature and engraving several delicate and difficult dis- 

 sections of the lower animals, particularly the nervous system of 

 Aplysia and Tritonia (the latter much magnified), and the nutrimen- 

 tal organs in situ of a caterpillar. These preparations, together with 

 the engravings of them, were handed round. 



Dr. Carpenter stated, that a similar process had been employed 

 for engraving microscopic objects, the discovery of which was due to 

 Capt. Ibbetson. He exhibited some plates of blood-globules, and 

 other microscopic objects published by Dr. Donne, of Paris, which 

 had been procured in this way. 



Sub-Section D.— ETHNOLOGY. 



' On the Ethnography of the Indo-Chinese Nation,' by R. G. 

 Latham. — There was no tract of country, the author remarked, of 

 equal circumference, where the language was spoken with so much 

 uniformity as in China. He described the characteristic of the lan- 

 guages of China, Thibet, and the ultra-Gangetic peninsula to be 

 monosyllabic ; these differed from each other to a greater or less 

 extent, but they all had the monosyllabic characteristic. Another 

 mass of languages was the Malay and Polynesian : from the Malayan 

 peninsula northward and westward — from Sumatra, from Borneo, 

 northward and westward, in the Philippine islands, along the whole 

 north coast of New Guinea, in the Ladrones and Caroline Islands, 

 in hundreds of mere specks in the sea, until we came to a small island 

 half way to America, there was one mass of languages, with the 

 exception of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land. He was satis- 

 fied the Malay language was of monosyllabic basis ; and hence he 

 contended for an affinity between it and the Chinese. Between the 

 languages of Turkey, Siberia, Finland, Nova Zembla, &c. and that of 

 China he could trace little affinity ; but after the Malay, the language 

 of the Caucasus had the closest affinity with that of China. 



' On the Migratory Tribes of Central India,' by Mr. E. Balfour. — 

 It has not been ascertained how many wandering tribes there are : 

 the author confined himself to the description of the manners and 



