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yells and frantic leapings. He is noisy and boisterous in speech and action, both at home and before strangers. Of his intellect less is known, but it seems at least equal, and probably superior, to that of the Malay. He has a love of art, decorating his canoe, his house, and almost every domestic article with elaborate carving. It must be granted, therefore, that these two races are most strongly contrasted, and if mankind can be classed at all in distinct varieties, the Malay and the Papuan must certainly be kept separate. Besides these wellmarked races are the inhabitants of the intermediate islands of the Moluccas and Timor, which, though differing in some degree from both, may yet, in almost every case, be classed with one or the other of them. The Negritos of the Philippines, and the Semangs of Malacca, differ in most important characters from the Papuan races with which they have hitherto been classed, and must be considered to have Asiatic rather than Polynesian affinities. The recent evidence of the antiquity of man, and his having survived geological changes and the extinction of many species of mammalia, introduces a new element into ethnographical researches, and enables us to speculate more freely on the application and origin of races. Mr. Darwin's researches on the structure and origin of the coral reefs of the Pacific, render it highly probable that great islands, or even continents, have recently sunk beneath its waters. The present distribution of animals in the Pacific Islands leads us to conclude that this subsidence is geologically recent. The inhabitants of all the Pacific islands as far west as New Guinea and Australia, have much in common, while they differ greatly from other races. Combining these facts and boldly following their indications, we may divide the Malay Archipelago by a virtual waving line through the Moluccas, so that all the tribes to the west of the line will be Malayan and of Asiatic origin, and all to the east Papuan or of Polynesian origin. This division is in harmony with that which has been shown to exist in the animal productions of the same regions, and obviates the difficulties attending every theory hitherto proposed as to the affinities and derivation of the Malayan and Polynesian races."

Professor JUKES said he could quite confirm Mr. Wallace's state. ments as to the distinction between the Malay and the Papuan races. He differed from him, however, in identifying the frizzled hair of the latter with that of the Negro. He was much struck with the latter part of the paper. The author had arrived at conclusions with reference to the antiquity of man, which he (Prof. Jukes) had ventured to draw some twenty years ago, though he had not ventured to state them publicly otherwise than in magazine articles and other anonymous papers. It had been for twenty years impressed upon his mind

that the great depression of land in Oceania was one of the chief causes operating for the distribution of race. If there had been a large continent in that part of the world inhabited by man, which continent has sunk and disappeared, and the tombs of which now exist in the coral islands, then the antiquity of the inhabitants of those islands would have to be dated from very far back indeed. In private discussions among his friends twenty years ago he never attributed to the human race an existence of less than a hundred thousand years. He had no data for arriving at that opinion, but the impression had been produced on his mind, and he still entertained the same conviction. A hundred thousand years was, after all, a small period to allow for the depression of a vast continent and the springing of a number of coral islands out of the bed of the ocean.

Dr. JAMES HUNT said that the paper which had just been read was one of the most important that had been submitted to the notice of the British Association. In the last portion of it the author very properly stated that the modern discovery of the vast antiquity of man had opened up fresh ground, and had, in fact, put the whole science of man in a new light. Some four years ago he had the honour of reading a paper before the Association on the harmony of the evidence in support of the antiquity of man, and on that occasion he spoke of the inadequacy of any of the views which had then been publicly put forward. The fact was, that when we talked of the existence of the human race we got out of our depth, and there were no data on which to build our conclusions. When he read the paper to which he alluded before the Association he quoted a remark from a German work which produced a smile, and which would probably have a similar effect now. The remark was to the effect that man had existed for not less than 35,000 years, and that there was every reason to believe that he had existed for nine millions of years. With reference to the question of race, the author of the paper very properly attached great importance to the principles of art which were found in different races. He entirely agreed with that sentiment. He would ask the author, however, whether he thought that similarity of language was a test of affinity, and whether, in the absence of civilisation, he did not admit that in certain races there was an inability to accept civilisation? Mr. Wallace ascribed the changes that had taken place in the races of Europe and America to physical causes. He would ask whether there was not a mental influence also at work in producing these changes?

After a few remarks from Mr. Crawfurd,

Mr. WALLACE said that the questions which Dr. Hunt had put to him were exceedingly difficult ones. With regard to language, he thought it was inferior as a test of race to physical and moral characters, but it was a very good test of close affinities of races which had been recently separated. It did not appear to him that it could be said of any race of men that it was unable to accept civilization. The inhabitants of Great Britain were once savages, and the Romans might have said of them that they were incapable of receiving civilisation, with as much justice as we could say so of the Negro. As

suming the correctness of the hypothesis of the remote antiquity of man, it might be argued that if one people-the Britons-could exist 50,000 years uncivilized, why could not another race exist 52,000 years without losing their capacity for improvement. With regard to the influence of mind on the changes of race, there were no doubt many varied causes to be taken into account, and he was not prepared to say that any particular influence had not been at work.

Sir J. RICHARDSON said that the very first problem in reference to the antiquity of man had not yet been solved. As yet we could not venture to state what was the precise age of a bank of peat moss. The paper which had been read seemed to him to strengthen the theory of the unity of the human jace. If ethnologists had only time to work out the changes in the human family some very serious difficulties would be removed.

Ethnology of Eastern Mantchuria. By Captain FLEMING. The particulars in this paper will be found in the recent work of this author.

On the Ethnology of Ceylon, referring especially to its Singalese and Tamil inhabitants. By MUTU COOMARA SWAMY. The author commenced by saying that the population of Ceylon was nearly three millions, and that its inhabitants, who were distributed among a great variety of races, might be classified under the heads of European, Asiatic, and Eurasian. The population was not great, and consisted chiefly of English, Irish, and Scotch emigrants, employed in the civil and military service, or on the plantations. The Asiatics of Ceylon are the Veddahs, the Singalese, the Tamils, the Moors, and the Malays. The Veddahs are hunters, and are supposed to be the aborigines of the island. The Tamils of Ceylon belong to the same race as the Tamils of Southern India, and consist either of those who have been on the island for centuries, or who are recent emigrants. They are to be chiefly found in the north-east portion of the island, and their two great capitals are Jaffna and Trincomalee. Their main occupation is agricultural. The coolies are the labourers of the island. They cross over in large numbers from the continent during the coffee season. The Singalese are the inhabitants proper of Ceylon, and range themselves under the heads of Kandians, Low Country Singalese, and Rhodiahs. The Kandians are the inhabitants of the hill country, and are a hardy robust race, never till recently intermingling with their low country brethren. Their language is made up of three component parts-Elu, a Singalese pure, the Pali, and the Sanscrit. They possess an extensive literature, and their religion is Buddism. The low country Singalese are either Bhuddists, Roman Catholics, or Protestants. The influence of Roman Catholicism is very great, and

the people are divided into classes after their occupations. The Malay population of the island is small, and the inhabitants form the Ceylon Rifle Regiment. They are faithful soldiers, brave and obedient; and in their religion thorough Mahommedans. The Moors are the small traders and shopkeepers of the island.

Mr. ELLIOTT said that the Tamil nation was the type one of the two great nations of Southern India, those who spoke the language of the south, and those who spoke the language of the north. Each was totally distinct from the other; the northern dialect being derived from the Sanscrit and the south being Tamil, and having a distinct alphabet of its own. He thought it probable that the slave population had also spoken a distinct language, as there were words still used by them which were not easily recognisable in the Tamil. These were probably vestiges of a tongue which was lost in the extreme state of destitution to which the race was reduced.

Mr. CRAWFURD expressed his gratification that the population of Ceylon had increased so much within the last twenty years. He had not the least doubt, however, that the island could easily support ten millions of inhabitants, and that it would ultimately reach that number if the Government continued to be wisely and liberally administered. He believed that all the pearls used by ladies in this country were Singalese pearls, being distinguishable from the Persian by their peculiar whiteness. The Malays of Ceylon were a very useful and industrious race.

Dr. HINCKS, having made some allusions to the peculiarities of the religion of some portions of the Asiatic population of the island, MUTU COOMARA SWAMY entered into some further particulars respecting the distinctions observable between the philosophical religion of the Hindoos and Bhuddism. The former taught the doctrine of the absorption of the soul into the Deity and of four degrees of happiness-the existence of the soul in the same sphere as God-its still closer affinity-its assumption of the form of God, and finally its absorption into the Deity. Three-fourths of the religion of the Hindoos was philosophical, and he claimed for his countrymen that they had worked out metaphysical problems of the same nature as those of Kant and other German philosophers, long before Kant's philosophy was thought of in Europe. It was, however, a failing in his philosophical countrymen that they often found themselves in cloudland, and went so far in their religious speculations as sometimes to doubt even their own existence. In this respect they showed the same fate as other metaphysicians who were apt to lose themselves in the labyrinth of their own subtleties.

Ethnology of the Island of Formosa. By Mr. Consul SWINHOE. This paper was read before the Ethnological Society in the beginning of the year.

On the Origin of the Gypsies. By JOHN CRAWFURD, Esq. This paper was read before the Ethnological Society last session. Mr.

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Crawfurd says:-" "The origin, as our old English has it, of the 'outlandish persons calling themselves Egyptians or Gypsies,' and constituting a strange kind of commonwealth among themselves of wandering imposters and jugglers,' is, at least, a subject of great curiosity, not to say of etymological import. Although their first appearance in Europe be coeval with the century which witnessed the discovery of the New World and the new passage to the Indies, no one thought of ascribing to them a Hindu origin, and this hypothesis, the truth of which I now propose to examine, is but of very recent date. Their Hindu origin was not for a long time even suspected; it has of late years, however, received general credence, and, I think, justly. The arguments for it consist in the physical form of the people, in their language, and in the history of their migration. The evidence yielded by physical form will certainly not prove the gypsies to be of Hindu origin. The Hindus are all more or less black; and assuredly no nation or tribe of Hindus now exists, or is even known to have ever existed, as fair as the gypsies of Europe. It is on language chiefly that we must rely for evidence of the Hindu origin of the gypsies, and even this is neither very full nor satisfactory. The dialects spoken by the different tribes of this people, although agreeing. in several words, differ very materially from each other. Besides the genuine Indian words to be found in the language of the gypsies, they all contain a large intermixture of foreign tongues, consisting of words of the languages of the people they dwell or have dwelt amongst,-of Persian, of Arabic, of Turkish, of Greek, of Hungarian, and of various Sclavonian tongues; these being, in some cases,-as, for example, in the Persian,--more numerous than the Hindu words. This is what was to be looked for from four hundred years' residence in Europe, and their sojourn among oriental nations in their necessarily slow journey westward. The Indian words which exist in the language of the gypsies are by no means so numerous as the Latin ones which are found in the Welsh and Armorican, or in the Irish and Gaelic, and there will be found wanting in the Gypsy language classes of words which are indispensable towards proving it of Indian parentage. Of the migration of the Gypsies from India there is assuredly no record in Indian history, neither have we of their arrival in any Asiatic country before they reached Europe. In both France and Italy their first appearance was in an inland city, in both of which they began at once to tell fortunes; a fact which supposes, of course, some acquaintance with the language of the people whose fortunes they pretended to predict. From these two facts, it may be inferred that the Gypsies

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