2!06 ON THE ORIGIN, &C. OF THE NATIVE RACES 
XI. — Inquiry into the Origin and Characteristic 
Differences of the Native Races inhabiting the 
Extra-tropical Tart of Southern Africa. 
By Robert Knox, M. D. 
Member of the Wemerian Natural History Society, and of the 
Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh. 
{Read 19th April 
The best apology I can offer for attempting the Inquiry 
I have now the honour to lay before the Society, is, that 
no similar one, relative to the country I speak of, has ever 
been instituted. Many travellers have described, with a 
minuteness proportioned to their talent for observation, the 
Peninsula of Southern Africa, and have given to the world 
valuable works on its natural history, political relations, &c.; 
but, so far as I know, none has ever viewed the savage 
races inhabiting this Peninsula in an anatomical point of 
view, and hence have arisen ill-founded conjectures, and 
positive errors, too numerous to be criticised. I have en- 
deavoured to correct those more immediately connected 
with our inquiry, but have carefully avoided general cri- 
ticism, as leading me from the subject. The Society will 
