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thing associated with climatic and atmospheric conditions which affects us 
in a very special way, but which does not admit of our assigning any 
definite cause. For instance, with regard to different diseases which prevail 
in our own country, we find that at one time a particular complaint is 
much more malignant than at another time, without there being any other 
assignable cause beyond those inscrutable differences of season which, to 
a great extent, are, I am afraid, beyond our investigation. It is probable 
that varying conditions of magnetic or electric phenomena, with possibly 
other recondite influences, may have something to do with this ; but our 
appreciation of these conditions must be very much a matter of guesswork. 
The conclusion, however, to which Dr . Gordon comes in his paper, upon one 
point, is of extreme importance to us as a nation. I allude to the doubt he 
has expressed as to the ability of the natives of India ever to attain any 
material difference or advance on their original physical and intellectual 
character beyond what they have now reached ; the inference being that it 
is doubtful whether they will ever be competent to hold the country in the 
way we have hoped they might some day be able to do after the educational 
influences we have brought to bear upon them. I suppose also, from 
what Dr. Gordon has said, he equally entertains the view that there is not 
much probability of Europeans ever being able to stand the Indian climate 
better than they now do ; although, no doubt, the mortality among the 
European population there is less now than it used to be, in consequence 
of improved sanitary and other conditions. But I have no views of my owu 
on this subject that I think it would be right to venture to intrude on this 
meeting. 
Mr. D. Howard, Y.P. I. C. — The paper read to us by Dr. Gordon is a rather 
difficult one to handle, because it contains such a vast number of interesting 
points. It is interesting in what it tells us, though it is somewhat tantalising 
in regard to the important questions it raises here and there, but which it 
does not attempt to settle. I will not venture to touch on all the points that 
have interested me, because I am afraid the time at my disposal would not 
allow me to do so ; I shall, therefore, only allude to one or two. There are 
several allusions in the paper to an interesting question that has frequently 
engaged my attention , and that is the question of changes in the character- 
istics of races. Two most interesting examples are given in this paper, of 
cases exactly opposite. One is the singular stability shown by a race of the 
Jewish type — the white Jews at Cochin — who for two thousand years have 
preserved their characteristics almost untouched by change. Yet, in the very 
rapid changes that have come over those natives of Africa who have been taken 
to America, is shown, on the other hand, a singular inability to stand the 
climate in which their great-grand-parents were nurtured. Then, again, we 
have the great change which comes over the English race in India, where it is a 
very rare thing for the third generation to survive without the alternation of 
a colder climate, which, if it be obtainable anywhere in India itself, must be 
among the hills of that country. The interesting remarks of the author 
as to the same curious diversity of experience in the case of plants and the 
