124 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [August, 



while the inhabitants of Europe have large heads ? The magnitude 

 of the brain among Europeans is too well known to need any 

 proof. How are these facts to be reconciled, if both these people are 

 the direct descendants of one and the same remote ancestry ? They 

 could only be reconciled by unwarrantable suppositions which are 

 contrary to knowledge ; for, in truth, they are totally irreconcilable. 

 Since the days of Campen and Blumenbach, the craniology of the 

 human race has taken the first position in anthropology, man being 

 preeminent among all other animals in the preponderant development of 

 his cerebral system which gives him his place in nature, and is the centre 

 of all his peculiarities; it is, therefore, the best interpreter of those 

 essential differences that reign betAveen the several races of men. The 

 collection of the materials for the study of the craniology of India may 

 be said to have yet to be commenced, although great numbers of educated 

 men have abundant opportunities for such collection. In all other 

 regions of the globe, craniology has. been made the proper basis for 

 anthropological researches. An able writer in the " Calcutta Review" 

 for June 1856, pointed out that this great branch of the subject is still 

 open for inquiry, and said that " a circle of Medical officers, say at 

 Ootacamund, Ahmedabad (in Guzerat), Cuttack, Manbhoom, Beer- 

 bhoom, Hazareebagh, Bhagulpore, Darjeeling, Nipal, Mymensing, 

 Assam, Sylhet, Cachar, Tipperah and Chittagong, acting in concert, 

 might unravel the inquiry of the skulls in a twelvemonth." It 

 is to be hoped that the circular printed in the last number of the 

 " Annals," No. XXI. p. 394, will excite attention to this most impor- 

 tant matter, and that the reproach will not much longer remain, of an 

 entire want of craniological material for the anthropology of India. The 

 author has already offered aid in carrying out such a project, and 

 hopes that it will be eminently successful. 



It is trusted that the cultivators of Indian philology will hail with 

 satisfaction the conjunction of the efforts of those who pursue 

 physical researches with their own, as there is much diversity of 

 opinion upon some primary points of their inquiry which may be 

 dissipated by the latter. It is hitherto an unsettled question whether 

 the Tamulian tribes of Peninsular India ought to be regarded as 

 aboriginal ; some of the most learned and most diligent investigators 

 consider them as such, and ally them closely with the Scythic or 



