of human nature, and by some divines it was used in a very special sense "to denote that manner of expression by which the inspired writers attribute human parts and passions to God" (Encyc. Britannica). Gradually, therefore, the term has acquired a wider and wider application, until in these days it has been made to embrace the whole science of human nature. Both in this country and on the Continent societies have been established for the cultivation of this science in its widest and most comprehensive signification, and some of the results of their labours have been given to the world in numerous published memoirs on the anatomy, psychology, languages, arts, and customs of mankind, and on the distribution and characteristics of the various tribes or varieties of men which inhabit or have inhabited our earth. We may now inquire what place would be occupied by a subject embracing so wide a range of topics as anthropology in the programme of a scientific body organized on the basis of this Association-of a body which, it must be remembered, was originated, and had pursued a highly successful career, many years before men began to think or speak of a science of anthropology in the sense in which the term is now employed. And, without doubt, the first and most logical step was to pursue the course which the General Committee took at the Birmingham Meeting in 1865, to enlarge the scope of Section D, and by altering its title from Zoology and Botany to Biology, to make it embrace the whole science of organization. Anthropology, therefore, or the science of man, naturally came to be included within this Section, and leave was given to the Committee of the Section to form a special department for the consideration of anthropological papers, should memoirs sufficient in number and importance be presented for perusal. So far, then, as the associating of men together in one section can form a bond of union, all those who work at the elucidation of the facts and laws of organization, whether they appertain to the lowliest plant or animal, or to man himself, find in this Biological Section a common meeting-ground. And, I would venture to submit, it is right that it should be so. For the investigation of the physical aspects of man's nature, which necessarily forms so large a part of our proceedings, demands the same precise method of work, and needs exactly the same training, as has to be gone through by all who aspire to excel either in this or in the other departments of biology. If we look at the history of our subject, and, without referring to living men, recall the names of those who have contributed largely to its progress— Haller, Linnæus, Blumenbach, Cuvier, Johannes Müller, William Lawrence, and John Goodsir at once stand out prominently, not only as accomplished anthropologists, but as men well versed in a wide range of biological study. Those who are conversant with anthropological literature will, I doubt not, have little difficulty in calling to remembrance various writings in which errors, not only in the description of objects, but in the general conclusions arrived at from their examination, would have been avoided, if the previous training of the authors had been of a wider nature; if they had fully appreciated the import of the processes of growth and development, nay, even the aberrations from the normal state through pathological changes occurring during embryo, or adult life, to which man is subject in common with other vertebrates. It is, I trust, needless for me to enlarge further on this topic, so that we may next proceed to inquire briefly into the part which an anthropological department may play in the proceedings of the British Association. In societies devoted solely to the consideration of anthropological questions, and acting as independent bodies, such as the Anthropological Institute of London, or the corresponding Society in Paris, all the subjects included within and constituting the Science of man naturally fall within the scope of inquiry, and come under discussion as opportunity offers. But in this department of the Association we have not that complete independence of action which these societies possess. We are only members of a still larger body, and the function which we perform must be duly subordinated to the common good; and owing to our recent introduction into the programme of its proceedings, much of the ground which many would consider we were fairly entitled to cover, has been largely preoccupied by other and older departments. As the physical aspects of our subject are based on anatomy and physiology, many of the papers on the structure and function of the human body and its constituent parts may doubtless be claimed by the Department of Anatomy. To other papers, in which comparisons are instituted between human and animal structure, the Zoologists may consider they have a title. To some extent also the habits of man and numerous important questions of a social nature are discussed in the Section of Economic Science and Statistics. The time when man first appeared on the face of the earth, the formations in which his remains and those of contemporary animals are found, may come under the consideration of the Geologists. As our subjects therefore dovetail so intimately with these other Sections of the Association, questions may occasionally arise whether papers submitted for perusal come more appropriately within their province or within ours. Probably the most satisfactory mode of solving this difficulty would be for the different Sections concerned to come to a common understanding that all papers which treat of the origin, varieties, and progress of mankind should be forwarded to this department. Again, if a separate Ethnological Department or subsection were formed, as has been suggested, or even if ethnological papers were read, as was for so many years the case in the Geographical Section, not only would all these communications on the characteristics of the different varieties of man, or their distribution over the globe, but even papers on comparative philology, and on questions appertaining to the early history of man, and to his primitive culture, in all probability be subtracted from our proceeding. Without doubt, all ethnic questions form an integral part of anthropological study, for ethnology is one of those subjects which form the groundwork of our science; and as it is an axiom that the whole is greater than and includes the part, all these questions naturally fall to be discussed in this department, and should not be divorced from their natural allies. The decision of the General Committee that the ethnological papers should be transmitted to this department was but to restore them to the place they originally occupied in the proceedings of the Association, for in its early years ethnology was a subdivision of Section D. The brief history of this department teaches us that its struggle for existence has been a severe one. It was only after the dissociation of the ethnological papers from the Geographical Section that our proceedings acquired much vitality, and to remove them from us now would be a severe blow to our usefulness. After recommending the Antiquarian Museum to the attention of visitors, Professor Turner concluded as follows:-As the "noblest study of mankind is man," the subjects which come within the scope of our inquiries in this department are amongst the most important in which a body of scientific men can be engaged. Let us approach their consideration with a spirit of due humility and reverence; let our discussions be so regulated that our desire may be, not to attain merely a personal victory in argument, but, if possible, to get at the truth. And if we claim to be called anthropologists, let not men say of us that our right to be so regarded is rather owing to our proficiencies, in the old Aristotelian meaning of the term, as discussors of persons-mere gossips-than to our qualifications as patient and humble students of the great science of human nature. On the Anthropology of the Merse. By JOHN BEDDOE, M.D. &c. The Merse is the low country of Berwickshire. Its ethnological history is pretty nearly that of the county of Northumberland, with certain variations, which have introduced a little more of the Gaelic and Scandinavian elements. The people are stalwart and bulky in a remarkable degree; a number of the pure breed averaged 5 feet 11 inches with shoes, and 199 lbs. with clothes. Their heads are large and well developed. The prevailing physical types may be referred to the Anglian and Scandinavian. The hair and eyes are generally light. The fishermen of Eyemouth are a separate breed; they also are very fair, and resemble Dutchmen or Norwegians. Changes in the food of the peasantry (who are giving up oatmeal and milk) and intermixture of blood, may have an unfavourable influence on the physical development of the next generation. On Degeneration of Race in Britain. By JoпN BEDDOE, M.D. While he allowed that in some classes, and particularly in the upper classes of townspeople, the conditions of life were on the whole improving, and that the operation of the Factory Acts had checked the progress of physical degeneration among manufacturing operatives, the author was of opinion that, on the whole, the agencies tending to promote degeneration were more powerful than the countervailing ones. Among them were the great increase of town population, the relative or even absolute diminution of the inhabitants of rural districts, the increased demand for female and youthful labour, and for labour of a nocturnal or otherwise exhausting kind. He did not think the food of the people improved proportionately with the rise of wages. The disuse of milk among the poor of large towns and some dairy districts was a great evil, and might have to do with the growing deterioration of teeth. England, the richest and most advanced of the four British countries, had been shown by Edward Smith to be the worst fed, so far as regarded the working classes. Dr. Beddoe's opinions were based in great measure on the results of certain weighings and measurements executed by his correspondents in various parts of the country, and he was anxious to add to the number of these correspondents, and to obtain more data of a similar kind. On Le Sette Communi, a German Colony in the neighbourhood of Vicenza. By Dr. CHARNOCK, F.S.A. After referring to theories as to the origin of Le Sette Communi, the author of the paper showed that they settled in Italy temp. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. The population amounts to 25,500. The people are principally engaged in breeding cattle. At the present day quite two thirds of them would seem to be neither of German nor of mixed origin, but are pure Italians, and speak Italian. Even the rest of the people (many of whom have intermarried with Italians) bear a greater resemblance to the latter than to the Germans. Dr. Charnock nevertheless noticed many people with fair hair and German features. This was especially the case among the women. The people are simple in their manners, and honest, but are poor, dirty, ignorant, and superstitious. No cases of goitre or cretinism, and no peculiarity of dress were observed. The dialect resembles the Oberdeutsch of the 15th century, and the language still spoken by the mountaindwellers of the Schlier and Tegern. The author made some remarks on the grammar, and the paper concluded with a vocabulary of some of the most important words, and a specimen of the Lord's Prayer, which Dr. Charnock compared with that of Le Tredici Communi. On the Physical, Mental, and Philological Characteristics of the Wallons. By Dr. CHARNOCK, F.S.A., and Dr. CARTER Blake. The ordinary Wallons stand in the same relation to Belgium as the Irish peasants do to the "Sassenach" of England. They are usually jovial, good-natured, generous, hospitable, chaste, poor, quarrelsome, and superstitious, like the Irish; and thus evince their Keltic descent. They are tough, rough, and hardy, and make excellent soldiers. The Spanish armies in the Pays-Bas were made up of Wallons. As evidence of their peculiar character, a Wallon will drag a pig from Namur to Ghent, Bruges, or Antwerp, to gain a few sous more than he could in his own district. The character of the people differs somewhat in each district. Those of Liège are very lively, spiritual, and laborious; those of Namur proud and coarse. The Wallons of Lower Pomerania stand even lower than those of Namur. Among the Wallons of Liège, even the women are renowned for their strength, industry, and energy. Like the men, they do the hardest kind of work, as coal-drawing, and towing the Meuse boats; and the Germans style Liège "Hölle der Frauen.' Wallon dialect is rich in metaphors, witty in expression, boldly figurative, and full of onomatopoeias. Generally speaking, it may be said that the Wallon is a spoken, not a written language. The pronunciation differs in different localities; and such are the modifications of accentuation, that almost every village has its own The manner of expression. Measurements of several Wallon skulls showed that a greater amount of dolichocephaly was attained in them than amongst any other Keltic race, except the Kerry Irish. On an Inscribed Stone at Newhaggard, in the County of Meath. By EUGENE A. CONWELL, LL.D., M.R.I.A. The author stated that the stone, of which a rough drawing of the natural size was exhibited, lies in a field near the river Boyne, belonging to J. Youell, Esq. The stone is a block of Old Red Sandstone, 2 ft. 11 in. × 2 ft. 10 in. × 1 ft. 8 in. It is known in the neighbourhood by the name of "the Giant's finger-stone." It is now 115 yards from a circular earthen encampment, which the author described. There are characters on all of its surfaces which the author believes to be cut, and not punched. The author is not able to give any interpretation of these markings. On the Origin of the Domestic Animals of Europe. None of them date so far back as the Quaternary age. The sheep, goat, smallhorned ox (Bos longifrons), the domestic horse, the dog, the tamed wild boar, and the turf-hog, to which all the European swine can be traced, appeared in Europe at the same time in the Neolithic age. He argued that they were probably derived from the East, and imported by a pastoral people from the central plateau of Asia. The evidence afforded on the point by the southern forms of vegetation found along with this group of animals in the Swiss lakes adds considerable weight to this view. In Britain, down to the time of the English invasion, there was no evidence of any larger breed of oxen than the small short-horned Bos longifrons; the larger breed of the Urus type were probably imported by the English, and is represented in the present day in its purity by the white-bodied, red-eared Chillingham ox. In the course of the discussion Dr. Sclater fully agreed with the views of the speaker as to the eastern origin of our domestic animals, since the East is the only region in which the wild ancestors of the domestic breeds are now found. On the attempted Classification of the Paleolithic Age by means of the The late eminent French naturalist, M. Lartet, acting on an à priori consideration, has attempted to divide up the Paleolithic age into four distinct periods. "L'age du grand ours des cavernes, l'age de l'éléphant et du rhinocéros, l'age du renne, et l'age de l'aurochs." The very simplicity of this system has made it popular. There are, however, two fatal objections to this mode of classification. In the first place, nobody could expect to find the whole Quaternary fauna buried in one spot. One animal could not fail to be better represented in one locality than another, and therefore the contents of the cave- and river-deposits must always have been different. The den of a hyæna could hardly be expected to afford precisely the same animals as a cave which had been filled with bones by the action of water. It therefore follows that the very diversity which M. Lartet insists upon as representing different periods of time, must necessarily have been the result of different animals occupying the same area at the same time. In the second place, M. Lartet has not advanced a shadow of proof as to which of these animals was the first to arrive in Europe. From the fact that the glacial period was colder than the quaternary, it is probable that the arctic mammalia, the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and the reindeer arrived here before the advent of the cave-bear. It is undoubtedly true that they died out one by one, and it is very probable that they also came in gradually. The fossil remains from the English caves and river-deposits, as, for instance, those of Kent's Hole or Bedford, prove only that the animals inhabited Britain at the same time, and do not in the least degree warrant any speculation as to which animal came here first. Nor does it apply to France or Belgium, for in the reindeer-caves of both these countries the four animals in question occ r together-the mammoth with the reindeer, and the aurochs with the cave-bear. In Belgium, indeed, the reindeer was probably living in the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages, since it lived in the Hercynian forest in the days of Julius Cæsar. A Gleam of the Saxon in the Weald. By WALTER DEndy. On the Relative Ages of the Flint- and Stone-Implement Periods in England. By J. W. FLOWER, F.G.S. In this paper, the author, after pointing out the great importance of the subject in relation to anthropology, stated that he proposed to show that, having regard to the result of recent researches and observations, the arrangement hitherto usually adopted of dividing the stone age into two epochs or periods only (Paleolithic and Neolithic) was insufficient, as regards England, and that for the purpose of scientific investigation, that which has been called the Paleolithic, might properly be subdivided into at least three distinct periods. That upon geological grounds, the Drift-implement period must be regarded as remote by a vast interval from the Bone-cave period, with which it has been classed by Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock, inasmuch as the gravels and sands which now overlie the implement-bearing gravels must certainly have been deposited after the implements were formed, and the production of such considerable masses of detritus can only have been the work of very extended periods of time, which had been conjectured as embracing even 100,000 years. That since these implements were made, it was obvious that most important geological changes had occurred, and in particular, that during this interval England had been severed from the continent of Europe, as the Isle of Wight had been separated from England. That in England and in France the gravel in, or under which the implements were found, as well as the animal remains found with them, were of precisely the same origin and mineral character, and in both countries resting immediately upon the Chalk; and as further evidence that the implements were made before the separation; and that thus the two countries were then inhabited, may be noticed the fact, that both in the valley of the Somme, and in that of the Little Ouse in Norfolk, the implement-bearing beds are overlain by thick deposits of peat, containing precisely the same vegetable and animal remains, which in both countries are quite distinct from those of the Drift, and of a far later date-amongst others, the Beaver, Bos longifrons, Roe, Wild Boar, and Red Deer. As further evidence of the extreme antiquity of these objects, Mr. Flower also drew attention to the circumstance, that hitherto no implement of the true drifttype had been found north-west of a line drawn from the estuary of the Severn to that of the Wash, between Norfolk and Lincolnshire, following the Lias escarpment, and only a little northward of the limit of the Boulder-clay deposit; and he suggested it as by no means impossible, that when these implements were made, the north of England, and perhaps all Scotland and Wales, were still submerged; and that although the implements were certainly found in Bedfordshire and Norfolk lying on Boulder-clay, those districts, not improbably, were elevated, and perhaps inhabited very long before the lands now lying to the north-west became habitable. The author considered it extremely improbable that either the drift implements or the gravels in or under which they are found, if transported by river-action, should have been deposited, as had been commonly supposed, by rivers which then ran in the same direction, and drained the same areas as now; inasmuch as they have lately been found at such elevations, and in such situations, as to preclude the belief that at any period since the surface assumed its present contours, any existing rivers could have effected the transport; and in support of this view several recent discoveries were referred to. He further observed that it seemed by no means certain, as was generally believed, that the makers of the flint implements were contemporary with the elephants and other animals, with whose remains they were often found asso |