10 Mr Cull on the recent Progress of Ethnology. 



On the recent Progress of Ethnology. By Richard Cull, 

 Esq., Honorary Secretary to the Ethnological Society, and 

 Corresponding Member of the Historical Institute of 

 France.* 



Two works by Dr Latham, one of our fellows, have been 

 published during the year — " The Ethnology of Europe " and 

 "The Ethnology of the British Isles:' These are valuable 

 additions to our literature, and bear the characteristics of 

 Dr Latham's vigorous mind. Much of the matter is neces- 

 sarily familiar to us as admitted science ; and not a little 

 containing his own views has already appeared in his former 

 publications. Dr Latham is doing good service to our science 

 by casting doubt and uncertainty on much of that which is 

 believed to be true, but of which the evidence is unsatisfac- 

 tory. Thus, in a former work, he drew attention to the 

 limited data on which Blumenbach erected and eulogized his 

 Caucasian race ; he now draws attention to the Saxons, and 

 displays with ability his view of the place which they occupy 

 in English history. And this view is not very flattering to 

 the vanity of those who boast of Anglo-Saxon origin. 



One of the great questions of European Ethnology, the 

 origin of the Etruscans, has been again discussed during the 

 past year. This subject has occupied the attention of some 

 of the profoundest scholars of our times, but unfortunately 

 with results much disproportioned to the labour which has 

 been expended. It is a question that only scholars can dis- 

 cuss, for the investigation is historical, philological, and criti- 

 cal, on materials collected both in ancient and modern days. 

 Dr Donaldson has, with praiseworthy industry, in Varronia- 

 nus, second edition, along with treatises on the Dialects of 

 ancient Italy, given in fuller detail than in his paper read 

 before the British Association, the evidences and data of his 

 views on the language and consequent origin of the Etruscans. 



The population of ancient Italy, as Dr Prichard {Physical 

 Hist., vol. iii., p. 203), has shewn, may be conveniently thrown 

 into three great groups, viz. : — 



* From a copy communicated by the Author. 



