Doms and the Brahuís, and others in the interior of the Dekhan, we cannot but admit that we meet here with a different race, which, by its physical and intellectual type, resembles closely the negro. The historical existence of this people we can trace in the Máhabhárata as well as in the history of Herodotus, in both of which we find them mentioned in the north and northwest of India, while the existence of the same dark race in the south is authenticated, not only by Indian poems, but also by Strabo.

There is also some difference between the Brahminical inhabitants of the north and the south of India, the latter being rather short in their stature and dark in their complexion, not however so much as not to show still on both sides the noble stamp of the Caucasian race.

But while on physiological grounds we should find no difficulty in admitting those two races as the inhabitants of India, we have still to account for the difference of language which exists between the north and south of this peninsula. If the great mass of the inhabitants of the Dekhan belongs to the Caucasian race, one would expect to find also amongst them a Caucasian or Indo-Germanic language. Instead of this we find that the southern languages are entirely and originally different from the Arian languages spoken in the north, and that they bear, so far as we may judge from the latest researches, a resemblance to the dialects spoken by the savage tribes, like the Bhillas and Gondas, which we considered as having a Cushite origin.

But although these facts may seem contradictory and perplexing, yet these contradictions between the results of physiological and linguistical inquiries. may be accounted for and reconciled by the aid of early tradition and history.

When the Arian tribes immigrated into the north of India, they came as a warrior-like people, vanquishing, destroying and subjecting the savage and despised inhabitants of those countries. We generally find that it is the fate of the negro race, when brought into hostile contact with the Japhetic race, to be either destroyed and annihilated, or to fall into a state of slavery and degradation, from which, if at all, it recovers by the slow process of assimilation. This has been the case in the north of India. The greater part of its former inhabitants have entirely vanished at the approach of the Arian civilization; some however submitted to the yoke of the conquerors, and many of these have, after a long period of slavery, during which they adopted the manners, religion and language of their superiors, risen to a new social and intellectual independence. The lower classes of the Hindús consist of those aboriginal inhabitants, and some of them continue still up to the present day in a state of the utmost degradation, living as outcasts in forests or as servants in villages. Some however who came into a closer contact with their masters, by living as servants and workmen in the vicinity of towns, or in the houses of their employers, have intellectually and physically undergone a complete regeneration, so that after three thousand years it would be difficult to trace the Súdra origin of many highly distinguished families in India.

The Arian conquerors of India did not however settle over the whole of Hindustan, but following first a southern and then a south-eastern direction, they left a great part of Western India untouched; and it is there that we find still those aboriginal tribes, which, escaping the influence of the Brahminical as well as afterwards of the Rajput and Mahomedan conquerors, preserve together with their rude language and savage manners the uncouth type of their negro origin. North of the tract of the Arian occupa

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tions only few of these Autochthones have been spared, yet some remains of them may be recognised in the tribes of the Rájís or Doms, who live in the mountainous parts of the Himalaya. They all belong to the same widespread people with whom but lately in Gondwana English armies came into hostile contact to prevent their pillage and human sacrifices; and it is curious to see how the descendants of the same race, to which the first conquerors and masters of India belonged, return, after having followed the northern development of the Japhetic race to their primordial soil, to accomplish the glorious work of civilization, which had been left unfinished by their Arian brethren.

Wholly different from the manner in which the Brahminical people overcame the north of India, was the way they adopted of taking possession of and settling in the country south of the Vindhya. They did not enter there in crushing masses with the destroying force of arms, but in the more peaceful way of extensive colonization (áçramas), under the protection and countenance of the powerful empires in the north.

Though sometimes engaged in wars with their neighbouring tribes, these colonies generally have not taken an offensive but only a defensive part; and it appears that, after having introduced Brahminical institutions, laws and religion, especially along the two coasts of the sea, they did not pretend to impose their language upon the much more numerous inhabitants of the Dekhan, but that they followed the wiser policy of adopting themselves the language of the aboriginal people, and of conveying through its medium their knowledge and instruction to the minds of uncivilized tribes. In this way they refined the rude language of the earlier inhabitants, and brought it to a perfection which rivals even the Sanscrit. By these mutual concessions a much more favourable assimilation took place between the Arian and aboriginal race, and the south of India became afterwards the last refuge of Brahminical science, when it was banished from the north by the intolerant Mohammedans. There remain still in some parts of the interior of the Dekhan some savage tribes, never reached by the touch of civilization; yet upon the whole the Arian population, though comparatively small in number, has overgrown the former population, so that physically only few marks of a different blood remain. It is interesting and important to observe how the beneficial influence of a higher civilization may be effectually exercised without forcing the people to give up their own language and to adopt that of their foreign conquerors, a result by which, if successful, every vital principle of an independent and natural development is necessarily destroyed.

The practical advantage of comparative philology is perhaps less evident, because only few have availed themselves of the results of this science, and applied them to the practical study of languages. Every one however knows how difficult it is to learn the first rudiments of a grammar, because all those terminations, suffixes and prefixes, with which our memory is at first overloaded, are to our mind but mere sounds and names, while, by tracing their origin, their historical development, and their affinity with grammatical forms of other known languages, we begin to take some interest in them, and by putting them in connection with other ideas, find it easier to keep them in memory quickly and firmly. Besides, having once acquired the real understanding of any grammatical form, and having put its origin and power into its proper light, we can afterwards dispense with a great many rules which are necessary only from the want of a real understanding of these grammatical forms. These forms once thoroughly understood, we acquire a kind of feeling which

tells us in any particular case how far grammatical elements, in accordance with their primitive power, are able to express different shadows of meaning in the spoken language of a people.

On the advantage which philosophy or science in general derives from comparative philology, I do not venture to add anything after what was so fully and clearly explained yesterday by Chevalier Bunsen, the representative of German science in this country. Language must be considered, in its connection with nature and with the human mind, as being the natural expression of every natural impression, as being the higher unity and absolute reality of objective nature and subjective mind. Language stands in the system of the intellectual world as light stands in the system of the physical world, comprising all, penetrating all, and revealing all. There is more indeed to be read in human language itself than in anything

that has been written in it.

Fourth Report on Atmospheric Waves. By W. R. BIRT.

In accordance with the resolution adopted at the last meeting of the British Association, I have the honour to report that about thirty sets of observations have been obtained from various stations in the British Islands: the extreme points of the area embraced by these stations are the Orkneys and Jersey in one direction, and Galway and Dover in the other. The observations have been executed with great care by the respective observers, and mostly at the hours named in the instructions. In some cases the observations have been continued through October, November and December; in others, they commence about the middle of October and terminate at the end of November. As instances of the increasing interest manifested on this subject, I have the pleasure to notice that I have been furnished with curves from stations in the North, where the barometric movements have been considered to result from the transit of the great November wave. These curves are referred in each case to the same period, namely, from the 2nd to the 17th of November; and the observers have invariably regarded the regular rise and fall that occurred between these epochs as indicating a well-marked return of the great symmetrical wave.

Observations.--The following Table contains the names of the stations and observers from which observations have been received: it is right to mention that a series of observations was received from Birmingham, but the curve presents so many anomalies, that it has not (except in some minor instances) been employed in deducing any of the succeeding results.

N.B. I am indebted to the Honorable the Corporation of the Trinity House for the Lighthouse observations, and to Rear-Admiral Beaufort, R.N., for the observations made on board the surveying vessels.-W. R. B.

The return of the November wave in the year 1846 occurred under very dissimilar circumstances to any that have been noticed in former years, and when contrasted with its transit in 1842, is extremely remarkable. The barometer at London maintained an elevation above thirty inches from the 26th of October until the 16th of November, both inclusive, with a very slight depression (012 only) below thirty inches on the afternoon of the 2nd, the period of the commencement of the wave. About 9 A.M. of the 17th, the mercurial column had slightly descended below thirty inches, so that the development of the wave at London was altogether above thirty inches. In 1845 the crest was scarcely elevated above this line. In consequence of this peculiarity the London curve is flat compared with those of former years, the altitude scarcely exceeding half an inch; these circumstances, in connexion with the usual character of the weather attendant on an elevated mercurial column, and the absence of strong gales of wind at the commencement and close of the wave, had no small tendency to mask it in the south-eastern parts of our island. The projected curve however strikingly developes its essential features. The five subordinate waves, of which the great wave is composed, are well seen, although the inflexions are not strong; the central or crowning wave at London occupied five days; the subordinate waves on the anterior slope a little more than a day and a half each; the wave that immediately followed the central wave exhibited a greater development, having an amplitude of four days; and the closing subordinate wave a day and a half. The epoch of transit, November 9th, was slightly earlier than usual,, but sufficiently near to regard these movements as a decided return of the wave, and strictly in accordance with the type as expressed in my last report.

Previous to proceeding with the examination of the observations received, I beg to solicit the attention of the Association to the principle that I laid down in my last report, namely, that a barometric curve, including a complete rise and fall at any one station, does not represent the form of any reality in nature. The peculiar combination of barometric ascents and descents occurring about this period of November, and exhibiting a remarkably symmetrical arrangement under very diverse circumstances and with very different barometric altitudes, is a phænomenon that appears to receive its explanation in the crossing of various systems of atmospheric waves or currents. The south-eastern portions of our island have generally presented the most symmetrical curves; and this circumstance, connected with the constant decrease of oscillation from the north-west, appears to indicate that about this part of the year, whatever may be the volumes of the individual waves of pressure, however they may be affected with regard to velocity, or may be superposed on much more extensive normal waves, the two systems so cross each other in their respective progressions towards the north-east and south-east, as to produce by their combined effects the barometric phænomena (so far as regards the curve) really observed. In the following notices of the observations, the term wave will be restricted to the protuberances on the symmetrical curve.

The most symmetrical curve has been obtained from observations made on board H.M.S.V. Porcupine, under the superintendence of Captain Frederick Bullock. The wave commenced off Walmer on the 2nd, culminated on the 10th, the ship being in Ramsgate harbour, and terminated on the 17th, the vessel in Dover harbour. This curve is characterized by a rapid fall, which took place immediately upon the culmination of the great wave, value 27 between 9 A.M. of the 10th, and 3 P.M. of the 11th. A second culmination, the crest of the first subordinate wave on the posterior slope, occurred on the 13th.

The highest reading of the barometer in the series occurred at St. Vigean's