222 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
Fossil Man, (5) Handicraft Products of Man, (6) and lastly. The 
hearing of Geology on the Prehistoric Kemains of Man. 
I do not propose to discuss here the amount and respective values 
of the materials so classified, hut merely to give a few illustrative 
examples of the manner in which they are brought together through 
these different channels, and made to fit complementary niches in 
the construction of the science of Anthropology. 
(1) Ethnology . — In regard to ethnology, it is almost unnecessary 
to say anything. The geographical distribution of the various races 
of Man, the physical peculiarities of the bodies and features, — the 
conformation of the skull, the size and structure of the brain, the 
colour of the skin, eyes, and hair, — together with the products of 
different civilisations scattered over the globe, are amongst the most 
essential elements which enter into this science. At the present 
time, indeed, great prominence is given to the collection and assort- 
ment of such ethnological materials brought by travellers from all 
parts of the world. 
(2) Language . — Knowledge may be communicated from one 
individual to another by gestures, sounds, pictures, and characters 
or letters representing definite ideas, according to a pre-arranged 
system ; and it belongs to the science of Anthropology to trace the 
growth of all these methods to their primary sources. The value of 
language when stereotyped in books and inscribed stones, such as 
the hieroglyphic and pictorial monuments of Egypt and the cunei- 
form tablets of Assyria and Babylonia, is so apparent that I need 
not dwell on this phase of the subject. On the other hand, spoken 
language is too transient to be reckoned of much consequence in 
determining the racial distinctions of mankind. The geographical 
distribution of a language does not always coincide with that of the 
people who invented it ; and, indeed, a given speech may altogether 
cease to be a living means of intercommunication, while its original 
inventors survive and continue to flourish under one borrowed from 
a different race. The fact that the Celtic language, which formerly 
prevailed over a large area in Western Europe, is now only to be 
found in one or two isolated corners, lends no support to the theory 
that a similar fate has overtaken the people who first introduced it. 
If we look underneath the superficial crust of modern civilisation, 
even in the most Saxonised part of England, we find the change of 
