The bones had no definite arrangement, but lay in the earth in an irregular manner. The floor of the cave was formed of solid rock, its walls were on much of their surface lined by a white calcareous deposit, 1 to 2 inches in thickness. In the roof of the cave was a fissure, widened out below, but which higher up was so narrow as to admit little more than the blade of a knife. The earth within the cave was moist, and it is probable that water had percolated into the cave through the fissure in the roof, and that the calcareous lining had been deposited from it. For my information respecting this cave I am indebted to Mr. Mackay, though several of the points I have referred to I was able to confirm from a personal examination of the locality made in October last. The bones were transmitted to me by Mr. Mackay, and were as follows:

The skull and greater part of the skeleton of an adult man. Unfortunately the skull was broken to pieces before it came into my possession, so that it is not possible for me to describe it. I may state, however, that the superciliary ridges were well marked, the lower jaw was powerful, the palatal arch was deep. The teeth were partially worn but not ground flat on the surfaces of the crowns, and they exhibited no decay. The tibia, femur, and humerus possessed some peculiarities in form. A second human skeleton was situated about one yard from the adult. From the characters of the skull and of the dentition, it is obviously that of a youth about eight or nine years of age.

The animal bones were mostly those of mammals, but a few bird's bones were also found. They consisted of the teeth, jaws, and long bones of the roe and red deer. Skulls and other bones of the common dog. Skulls and other bones of foxes. Skulls and other bones of a species of Mustela. The humerus and ulna of an otter. Bones of the limbs of the hare. Skull of an Arvicola. A large number of the long bones of the red deer, which have been split into fragments, in all probability for the ready extraction of the marrow. No human bones were found split in this manner. Fragments of calcined bones. Shells of limpets. Fragments of granite and water-worn pebbles. A number of flint nodules and flint chips and implements. Some of the nodules are partially chipped, as if in process of being converted into implements. The nodules are small, and the implements formed from them are necessarily small also. Is it not possible that the differences in the size of flint implements met with in different focalities may be due to the fact that flint nodules vary in size in different places, and that the men of the period had to make their implements of a size such as the materials at their disposal permitted? The most perfect of these implements have sharp edges all round, they are comparatively flattened, and in no instance possessed a length of 3 inches, or a greater thickness than about half an inch.

As flint is by no means a common material in Scotland, I was desirous of obtaining from the most competent authority information on the nearest locality from which they could have been obtained. My colleague, Prof. Geikie, writes me: A few years ago I found a bed (20 feet thick) of chalk flints underlying the great basalt cliffs of Carsaig, on the south shores of the island of Mull. This is, I believe, the nearest point to Oban from which flint could be brought."

I think that the examination of the various objects found in this cavern leads to the conclusion that it had been used as the habitation of man; for we have not only the remains of man himself, the animals on which he fed, the dog which he, without doubt, employed to aid him in the chase, but the implements which he used, and the raw material out of which those implements were manufactured; further, charred remains, which indicate that he had employed fire to cook his food. The great thickness of the embankment of earth in front of the mouth of the cave leads me to think that it had been closed up by a great landslip of the loose earth from the summit of the cliff. Perhaps the human inhabitants had been buried alive in their cavernous dwelling-place.

It is well known that not only in Scotland, but in various parts of the globe, caves have been used, and, indeed, in some localities are still used, as human habitations. What the exact age of these remains may be it may be difficult to say, but the association of flint implements with the human and animal bones points to a considerable antiquity.

1871.

11

On Man and the Ape. By C. STANILAND WAKE, Director of the

Anthropological Institute.

In this paper the author referred to the agreement in physical structure of man and the ape, and to the fact that the latter possessed the power of reasoning, with all the faculties necessary for its due exercise. It was shown, however, that it was incorrect to affirm that man has no mental faculty other than what the ape possesses. He has a spiritual insight or power of reflection which enabled him to distinguish qualities and to separate them as objects of thought from the things to which they belong. All language is in some sense the result of such a process, and its exercise by even the most uncivilized peoples is shown in their having words denoting colours. The possession by man of the faculty of insight or reflection is accompanied by a relative physical superiority. The human brain of man is much larger than that of the ape, and he has also a much more refined nervous structure, with a naked skin. The author observed that the size of the brain was the only physical fact absolutely necessary to be accounted for, and this could not be done by the hypothesis of natural selection. Mr. Wallace's reference, on the other hand, to a creative will, really undermines Mr. Darwin's whole hypothesis. After referring to the theories of Mr. Murphy and Haeckel, the author stated that the only way to explain man's origin, consistently with his physical and mental connexion with the ape, is to suppose that nature is an organic whole, and that man is the necessary result of its evolution. While, therefore, man is derived from the ape as supposed by Mr. Darwin, it is under conditions very different from those his hypothesis requires. According to this, the appearance of man on the earth must have been in a certain sense accidental; while, according to the author's view, organic nature could only have been evolved in the direction of man, who is the necessary result of such evolution, and a perfect epitome of nature itself.

On certain Points concerning the Origin and Relations of the Basque Race. By the Rev. W. WEBSTER.

GEOGRAPHY.

Address by Colonel HENRY YULE, C.B., President of the Section. You are aware that the honourable position which has been assigned to me was originally destined for a gentleman, by labours, knowledge, and reputation throughout the world as a geographer, far otherwise qualified to fill it. His lamented removal, within a very short time of the date fixed for this Meeting, compelled the Council of the Association to make prompt arrangements for the presidency of the Geographical Section. The distinguished soldier and scholar who has recently succeeded to the chair of the Royal Geographical Society was unable to attend; and the officers of the Association thought proper to propose me for the duty. I am quite inexperienced in such office; whatever claim I have to the character of a geographer has been acquired in a limited field, and rather from the literary than the scientific side; a variety of subjects must come before us with which I am quite unfamiliar; and I had for these and other reasons abundant misgivings as to the fitness of the choice. But I did not feel at liberty to decline the duty, especially as it was not the first time that, unsought, it had been proposed to me. Even among an entire company of strangers, the circumstances of the case, the short time which they allowed for preparation, would, I felt assured, secure indulgence. When I can count so many countenances of friends around, I feel that it is needless to plead for it.

and

The first natural duty in circumstances like the present is to pay a tribute, however inadequate, to the memory of the eminent geographer whom we expected to

fill this chair. Deeply do I regret not to be able to speak of him from personal acquaintance, or even from correspondence. I knew him only by his works. And who is there that did not? The long list of those works has been rehearsed in so many of the notices that have honoured his memory, as well as in the address of the Vice-President of the Geographical Society, when presenting the medal which he had won by so many years of faithful labour in the cause of Geography, that I need not now repeat them. Indeed, when contemplating the catalogue of such an amount of work achieved, an amateur geographer like myself stands abashed-but feels at the same time that his own limited experience and desultory studies serve at least to furnish him with some just scale by which to estimate the vast labours involved in the accomplishment of such a life's work as Dr. Keith Johnston's. During that life's work of five-and-forty years, there was little or no call for modifications in the assigned dimensions or outline of the inhabited continents of the world, such as were needed in the corresponding space of years that followed the first voyages of Columbus and Da Gama. But with the exception of that epoch, none in history has produced so much change in the atlas of the world, by the modification and completion of internal spaces that once stood in error or in blank upon our maps. Think of the growth of knowledge of which we should become sensible were we to compare sheet by sheet this late geographer's first National Atlas with the latest editions of the maps of his Royal Atlas! Think of the changes that we should find in the representation of Central America and Interior Africa, in the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, in Australia, in Central and Northern Asia, in Indo-China-nay, to some extent in India itself! I will conclude these remarks by quoting the words used by a friend in writing to me on this subject: "I obtained, at various times, from Keith Johnston, information, which he was always most ready to give; and I had an opportunity of learning something of the wide range of his researches and correspondence, and of his diligence in the pursuit of materials for his work. He seemed to be imbued with the modesty and caution of a true student of a science which is so constantly presenting corrected views of old knowledge, as well as new facts and new means of investigation; whilst he showed the real delight he had in the labours themselves, no less than in the attainment of the results."

I shall in this Address attempt no general view of the geographical desiderata of the time, and of recent geographical progress in discovery and literature throughout the world. Living habitually far from new books and meetings of societies, I am not sufficient for these things; nor, if I were, could I easily vary from the comprehensive epitome of the year's geography which, but two months ago, was issued, though, as we know with sorrow, not delivered, by him who has been so long the Dean of the Faculty of Geographers in Britain, and whose name is as thoroughly and as respectfully identified throughout the Continent with English geography as once was that of Palmerston with English policy. And since I am naming Sir Roderick Murchison, all, I am sure, will be glad to know that, though his power of bodily movement is seriously impaired, his general health is fair, his intellect and his interest in knowledge are as bright as ever; and as for his memory, I will only say I wish mine were half as good! He has desired me to take occasion to express his deep regret at his inability to be present at this Meeting. It is, he said, one of the most painfully felt disappointments that his illness has occasioned; for he had looked forward with strong interest to taking part once more in a meeting of the Association at the chief city of his native country-with

which city, I may remind you, he the other day bound his name and memory by strong and enduring ties, in the foundation of a Chair of Geology in this University.

Instead, then, of attempting a review which in my case would be crude, and therefore both dull and uninstructive, I propose to turn to one particular region of the Old World with which my own studies have sometimes been concerned, and to say something of its characteristics, and of the progress of knowledge, as well as of present questions regarding it.

There are, however, one or two points on which I must first touch lightly. Of Livingstone, all that there is to tell has already been told to the world by Sir Roderick Murchison. We know the task that Livingstone had laid out for himself

in dispersing the darkness that still hangs over some of the greatest features of Central-African hydrography, by determining the ultimate course of the great body of drainage which he has followed northward from 12° south latitude-whether towards the Congo and the Atlantic, or towards Baker's Lake and so to the Nile, as well as the kindred question of the discharge of Lake Tanganyika; but of his progress in the solution of those questions we know nothing. I can but add that Sir Roderick himself has lost none of his confidence in the accomplishment of the task, and in the return of the great traveller at no distant period. That confidence of his has been so often before justified by the arrival of fresh news of Livingstone, however meagre, that we may well retain strong hope, even if it be not granted to all of us to rise from hope into confidence. We trust, then, that Livingstone will never have a place among the martyrs of geography.

One addition, however, has been made during the past year to that long list, in the name of the undaunted George Hayward, formerly a lieutenant in the 72nd Regiment, who had for some years resolutely devoted himself to geographical discovery. After having proved his powers in a journey to Yarkand and Kashghar, which obtained for him last year one of the medals of the Geographical Society, he had started again, with aid from that Society, to attempt an examination of the famous Plateau of Pamir, hoping to succeed in crossing it, and to descend upon the Russian territory at Samarkand. In the Darkot Pass, above Yassin, he was foully murdered by the emissaries of the chief of that district, Mir Wali by name. Public suspicion in India first turned upon the Maharajah of Kashmir, on whose alleged oppressions Hayward, in a private letter, had made severe remarks, which were rashly published by the editor of a local newspaper. The latest intelligence seems to exonerate the Maharajah and to throw the guilt of complicity rather on the Mahomedan chief of Chitral. If he be the guilty man, it may be difficult to punish him, so inaccessible is his position at present; for, to apply the old saw of the Campbells, "It is a far cry to Chitral." I may observe, however, that some sixteen or seventeen years ago a similar murder took place on the persons of two poor French priests at the other extremity of India, and within the Thibetan boundary on the Upper Brahmapootra, and the apprehension of the criminal must have seemed almost as hopeless as in this case. Yet eventually he fell into the hands of our officers of the province of Asám, and paid the due penalty of his crime. One book recently issued by the India Office I wish to bring to notice in a very few words. I mean Mr. Markham's 'Memoir on the Indian Surveys.' Of this work, excellent in object and in execution, a pretty full account will be found in Sir R. Murchison's Address; my object is merely to say how encouraging I believe a work like this is likely to prove to those who are employed on such duties as the memoir treats of; for they will see that here are recorded with hearty appreciation, in a book that will be largely read and permanently referred to, the labours, always toilsome, often perilous, often fatal, of a great number of zealous servants of the State, the memory of whose merits would in many cases, but for this book, have been left to decay amid the dust of the India Office. The preparation of such a work shows a spirit which has been too often missing in our administrators, and is honourable, not only to the author, but to the Department which has promoted and authorized its publication.

Within the last few days my attention has been drawn to some maps which have been recently issued by the Forest Department of India, showing the geographical distribution of teak and other valuable woods in that country. I regret to learn that the Forest-management in India is looked upon, by some of those statesmen who are now interesting themselves in Indian details, too much as regards its mere results in revenue. But the conservation, and, if possible, the recovery, of forests of valuable timber is a work which the State alone can touch, and which is of the highest importance, quite apart from immediate returns in revenue. There were, I know, some years ago, and no doubt still are, such forest-tracts, where the only hope of recovery lay in their entire closure; and from these, of course, there could be no revenue. During many years of railway construction in India the waste of valuable timber, an article now comparatively rare and costly in that country, and for which in many of its purposes there is no substitute, was lamentable and probably irreparable! The teak timbers that bind the walls of

the palace of the Sassanian kings at Ctesiphon in Babylonia-walls and timber dating alike from the fifth or sixth century of our era-are still undecayed! And yet myriads of logs of this precious material have been used up and buried in the ground as railway-sleepers-a position in which decay was sure to arrive in a very few years-when a very little thought and trouble would have provided an enduring substitute of iron. I believe that had a Forest Department been in earlier existence, much of this misapplication of valuable material might have been avoided, or at least the misapplication would not have been at India's cost. Nor is such waste of resources the only evil that forest-conservancy has to guard against. The unregulated denudation of extensive tracts has a marked influence on the rainfall; and it is one of the duties of a forest-conservancy to see that the sometimes furious demands of the market for timber or fuel do not lead to such general and unregulated denudation.

The geographical field on which, with your permission, I propose to expatiate for a little, is that of India beyond the Ganges; I mean in the largest sense of the expression, and inclusive, at least in some points of view, of the Indian Islands. India, indeed, in old times, was a somewhat vague term, or at least it had always a vague as well as an exacter interpretation. In the latter, it had the same application that we give it now when we speak with precision; it meant that vast semipeninsular region roughly limited by the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges, which embraces many nations and many tongues and many climates, but yet all pervaded by a certain almost intangible character which gives it a kind of unity recognized by all. In its vaguer sense, India meant simply the Far East. The traces of such use still survive in such expressions as the East Indies or the Indian Archipelago. Though this vague and large application of the name probably arose only from the vagueness of knowledge, it coincides roughly with a fact; and that is the extraordinary expansion of Hindoo influence, which can be traced in the vestiges of religion, manners, architecture, language, and nomenclature over nearly all the regions of the East to which the name has been applied. Another name has been applied to the continental part of this region, Indo-China. This, too, expresses the fact that on this area the influence of India and of China have interpenetrated. But the influence of China has, except on the eastern coast, been entirely political, and has not, like that of India, affected manners, art, and religion.

The great elevation that we call the Himalya, after passing beyond the utmost eastern limits of the British province of Asam, is continued in a vast mass of compressed and rugged mountains, of whose lines we have no exact knowledge, but which we know still to reach, at points within the bounds of China Proper, a height of 15,000 feet. In Yunnan these drop into a great plateau, standing at an average height of some 6000 feet above the sea, on which are planted the chief cities of that province, whilst branches of mountain-chains extend far to the south and east, reaching the sea or its vicinity at Cape Negrais, at Martaban, in the southeast of Cochin China, and in Fokien.

Looking at the Map of Central and Southern Asia, we see what a barrier the Himalya forms to the drainage of the plateau of Tibet. The Indus and the Sanpu, having their sources within that plateau, and at a very short distance from each other, flow respectively westward and eastward within this barrier till they reach an extreme distance from one another, of about 26° of longitude, before they turn southward and escape into the plains of India.

But eastward from the exit of the Sanpu, the mountain-barrier is forced, within 3o of longitude, by at least six great rivers, counting in that number the Sanpu or Dihong. These six rivers, the Dihong, the Dibong, the Lohit, the Lu-Kiang or Salwen, the Lantsang or great Camboja river, and the Kinsha or upper stream of the Yangtse, all derive their origin (I believe the fact is beyond reasonable doubt) from far within the Tibetan plateau.

Another great river, the Irawadi, comes certainly from the vicinity of Tibet; but whether it derives any considerable stream from within that region is a point still undecided. The question excited much controversy some forty-five years ago, when Klaproth made a desperate attempt to prove that the waters of the Sanpu, instead of flowing into Asám, were really the head-waters of the Irawadi. The doctrine was backed on Klaproth's part by much Chinese learning, as well as