1867.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 125 



Turanian tribes of the north. It is not at all too much to say that 

 this question, with a number of others, may be satisfactorily illustrated 

 by an adequate examination of their craniology, whenever the means 

 for such shall be procured. Whether this hope may be realized is 

 after all doubtful, when we look to another line of philological inquiry. 

 It is an admitted fact among philologers that the division of mankind 

 designated by them " Syro- Arabian" is physically identical with the 

 Aryan section ; still the two cannot be allied, because the languages of 

 the two families utterly sunder them. This proves the false position 

 that has come to be assigned to philological affinities and diversities ; 

 they are erroneously assumed to be of higher import than sameness or 

 discrepancy of organization. So that if Indian Ethnologists are not 

 prepared to allow the position here assumed for craniological researches, 

 still it must be admitted that, regarding them merely as auxiliary to 

 those based upon languages, they are of the utmost value and utility. 



Mr. W. Blanford said :— 



It appears to me that Mr. Davis falls into precisely the error 

 against which he inveighs. He objects to the affinities of the Eu- 

 ropean and Hindu races being decided by the question of language 

 alone, yet he attempts to decide it by the size of their skulls. At 

 least one half of the errors which exist in natural history classifications, 

 are due to the vicious system, a system which cannot be too strongly 

 reprehended, of depending upon some one peculiarity or some one 

 organ alone, without regard to others. I believe questions of race are 

 not to be decided by crania alone, and if so decided, the decisions 

 will, I believe, be of but small value. 



Mr. Davies does not appear to me either to have answered the 

 strong arguments which exist in favour of the unity of races, nor to 

 have brought forward any but old and well-worn arguments on the other 

 side. Some of the latter I am surprised to listen to. The fact that 

 negroes have bred truly for 80 years in Nova Scotia, simply shews that 

 three generations of children may resemble their parents. On the other 

 hand, the assertion that no change ever takes place in the intellectual 

 faculties of a race, appears opposed to the history of some of the races 

 now inhabiting Western Europe, which 3000 years ago were savages, 

 little, if at all superior to the tribes of Central Africa at the present 

 day. 



