1867.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society . 121 



ber of the Council, and was for more than three years a Vice-President. 

 He was an amiable man of retired habits. He was a good Sanskrit 

 scholar, and his loss is much to be lamented by the members of the 

 Society. 



The Secretary then read a paper on the Ethnology of India, by 

 J. B. Davis, Esq. M. D., of which the following is an abstract. 



Our author begins his paper by saying that the Ethnology of 

 India is no new subject, but is of great interest, and is at the present 

 time attracting considerable attention. The study of it may be said 

 to date from the earliest advent of western science to the shores of the 

 Ganges ; and it is considered to have made great progress, for, upon 

 the foundation then laid, a comprehensive hypothesis 'has been built, 

 and is now all but universally received, which is almost as vast as the 

 old world, and probably embraces nearly as many races of man as the 

 ancients were acquainted with. 



Sir William Jones, in his third discourse, said : " The Sanscrit 

 language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure ; 

 more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more 

 exquisitely refined thau either ; yet bearing to both of them a stronger 

 affinity both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than 

 could possibly have been produced by accident ; so strong indeed, that 

 no philologer could examine all three, without believing them to have 

 sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists."-— 

 Ariana Antiqua, p. 122 &o. 



Our author thinks it difficult to conceive of the argument respecting 

 the Arian hypothesis as other than a suppositional and unstable 

 foundation for the Indo-European hypothesis, the affinity of words 

 being the strongest and surest material that enters into the composi- 

 tion. A competent philological authority has already said respecting one 

 great branch of it : — "If the current views concerning what is called the 

 eastern origin of the so-called Indo-Europeans are correct, they are so 

 by accident ; for they rest upon an amount of assumption far greater 

 than that which the nature of the question either requires or allows." 

 — Dr. R. G. Latham. Packard's eastern origin of the Celtic Nations. 

 Preface, p. vii. 



However, assuming this foundation to be substantially true, an 

 immense amount of learning has been expended in investigating 



