Mr. F. W. RUDLER, the Director, then read the following Report:

REPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND FOR 1884.

During the past year thirteen ordinary meetings have been held, in addition to the Anniversary Meeting. In the course of the year the following thirty-five papers have been communicated to the Institute :

1. "On the Ethnology of the Congo and South Western Africa." By H. H. Johnston, Esq.

2. "On a Human Skull found near Southport." By G. B. Barron, Esq., M.D. 3. "Traces of Commerce in Prehistoric Times." By Miss A. W. Buckland. 4. "On some Paleolithic Fishing Implements from the Stoke Newington and Clapton Gravels." By John T. Young, Esq., F.G.S.

5. "The Nanga, or Sacred Stone Enclosure of Wainimala, Fiji." By the Rev. Lorimer Fison, M.A.

7.

6. On the Melanesian Languages." By the Rev. R. H. Codrington, M.A. On the Longstone and other prehistoric remains in the Isle of Wight." By A. L. Lewis, Esq., F.C.A.

8. "On the Cromlech of Er-Lanic." By Admiral F. S. Tremlett.

9.

"On the Antiquity of Man in Ireland." By W. J. Knowles, Esq.

10. "On a Portion of a Human Skull of supposed Paleolithic Age from near Bury St. Edmunds." By H. Prigg, Esq.

11. "Note on some Ancient Egyptian Bronze Implements." By F. G. Hilton Price, Esq., F.S.A.

12. "The Frankfurt Craniometrical Code." By J. G. Garson, Esq., M.D. 13. "Note on a Portrait of an Aboriginal Tasmanian." By Sir Richard Owen, K.C.B., F.R.S.

14. "On the Ethnology of the Sudán." By Professor A. H. Keane, B.A. 15. "On the Ethnology of the Andaman Islands.” By E. H. Man, Esq. 16. "Additional Observations on the Osteology of the Natives of the Andaman Islands." By Professor Flower, LL.D., F.R.S., President.

17. "Notes on Remains from Cemeteries in the Island of Antiparos." By Theodore Bent, Esq.

18. "On the Koeboes of Sumatra." By H. O. Forbes, Esq.

19. "On the Osteology of the Koeboes of Sumatra." By J. G. Garson, Esq., M.D.

20. "On the Deme and the Horde." By A. W. Howitt, Esq., F.G.S., and the Rev. L. Fison, M.A.

21. "On African Symbolic Language." By the Rev. C. A. Gollmer.

22. "On the Size of the Teeth as a Character of Race." By Professor Flower, LL.D., F.R.S., President.

23. "On Flint Implements found at Reading." By O. A. Shrubsole, Esq.,

F.G.S.

24. "Phoenician Intercourse with Polynesia." By S. M. Curl, Esq., M.D. 25. "On a Hindu Prophetess." By M. J. Walhouse, Esq.

26. "On the Anthropometric Laboratory at the late Health Exhibition." By Francis Galton, Esq., F.R.S.

27. "Ethnological Notes on the People of the Island of Buru." By H. O. Forbes, Esq., F.Z.S.

28. "Note on the Abnormal Dentition of Hairy Boy from Russia."

H. Coffin, Esq., M.D.

By W.

29. "Facts suggestive of Prehistoric Intercourse between East and West."

By Miss A. W. Buckland.

30. "On some Doubtful or Intermediate Articulations." By Horatio Hale, Esq.

31. "Remarks on the Customs and Language of the Iroquois." Erminie A. Smith.

By Mrs.

32. "Marriage Customs and Relationships among the Australian Aborigines.” By Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S.

33. The Jeraeil, or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kurnai Tribe." By A. W. Howitt, Esq., F.G.S.

34. "On a Collection of Human Skulls from Torres Strait." By Oldfield Thomas, F.Z.S.

35. "On some Tribes of New South Wales." By A. L. P. Cameron, Esq.

Four numbers of the Journal have been issued to members during the year, namely, Nos. 46, 47, 48, and 49. These contain 472 pages of letterpress, thirty-five plates, and numerous tables. The Institute is indebted to several authors, especially to Mr. Worthington Smith, for illustrating their papers at their own expense.

During the year 27 new members have been elected.

The former and present state of the Institute, with regard to the number of Members, are shown in the following Table :—

The Council regrets to report that the Institute has lost, through death, three Honorary Members, namely, Dr. J. Aitken Meigs, Professor Perty, and Dr. Phoebus; and the following Ordinary Members, namely: Mr. W. Bragge, Mr. J. Lancaster, Mr. J. Milligan, Mr. G. Morrison, Mr. J. Dormer Neal, Mr. C. Stenning, Dr. Allen Thomson, Mr. Nicholas Trübner, and Mr. Alfred Tylor. In this list there are two names which the Council would especially recall as those of active Members. Dr. Allen Thomson was for some time a Vice-President, and Mr. Alfred Tylor had not only served on the Council, but had from time to time contributed papers to the Institute.

At the last Anniversary Meeting the President referred to the contemplated removal of the Institute to the premises of

the Zoological Society. Possession of the new rooms in Hanover Square was taken early in the spring, and the first evening meeting was held there on April 22nd. It is a source of satisfaction to the Council to find that the change has in every way conduced to the increased convenience of the members. The admirably appointed meeting-room offers many advantages over the old room in which our meetings were formerly held; the books are much better accommodated than they were in St. Martin's Place; and the stock of the Journal, instead of cumbering the shelves of the Library, is now stored in a room on the basement of the building. On the whole, the Council feels that it may congratulate the members on now occupying a more convenient set of rooms than any held at previous periods.

The removal and the fittings of the office and Library entailed an expenditure of £185 15s. 2d., of which sum £100 has been contributed by the Zoological Society, on condition that an annual payment of £5 be added to the rent.

The Library has been enriched during the year by a large number of donations, including some especially valuable folios of photographs by Prince Roland Bonaparte. But as the donations of books are regularly acknowledged in the proceedings printed in the Journal, it seems needless to repeat the list of donors in this place.

The increased expenditure in the new premises requires an augmentation of income, and the Council would take this opportunity of strongly urging members to further the objects of the Institute by inducing such of their friends as are interested in anthropological subjects to apply for membership. It is only by possessing a larger income that the Quarterly Journal can be efficiently illustrated, and the work of the Institute extended.

The Reports were adopted on the motion of Mr. W. G. SMITH, seconded by Mr. T. V. HOLMES.

The PRESIDENT then delivered the following address:

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

ADDRESS delivered at the ANNIVERSARY MEETING of the ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE of GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND, January 27th, 1885, on the CLASSIFICATION of the VARIETIES of the HUMAN SPECIES. By the President, Professor W. H. FLOWER, LL.D., V.P.R.S., P.Z.S., &c., Director of the Natural History Department of the British Museum.

On the occasion of the Anniversary Meeting of the Institute last year, I endeavoured to sum up in a few words the principal aims and scope of the science of Anthropology as now understood.

I then gave reasons for my belief that the discrimination and description of the characteristics of the various races of men is one of, if not the most practically important of the different branches into which the whole of the great subject is divided. It was also stated that, although other characters, such as those derived from language, social customs, traditions, religious beliefs, and from intellectual and moral attributes, were by no means to be neglected, structural or anatomical characters are those upon which in the end most reliance must be placed in discriminating races.

I propose now to give a brief summary of the results attained up to the present time by the study of the racial characters of the human species, and to show what progress has been made towards arriving at a natural classification of the varieties into which the species may be divided.

The most ordinary observation is sufficient to demonstrate the fact that certain groups of men are strongly marked from others by definite characters common to all members of the group, and transmitted regularly to their descendants by the laws

of inheritance. The Chinaman and the Negro, the native of Patagonia and the Andaman Islander, are as distinct from each other structurally as are many of the so-called species of any natural group of animals. Indeed, it may be said with truth that their differences are even greater than those which mark the groups called genera by many naturalists of the present day. Nevertheless, the difficulty of parcelling out all the individuals composing the human species into certain definite groups, and of saying of each man that he belongs to one or other of such groups, is insuperable. No such classification has ever, or indeed can ever, be obtained. There is not one of the most characteristic, most extreme forms, like those I have just named, from which transitions cannot be traced by almost imperceptible gradations to any of the other equally characteristic, equally extreme, forms. Indeed, a large proportion of mankind is made up, not of extreme or typical, but of more or less generalised or intermediate, forms, the relative numbers of which are continually increasing, as the long-existing isolation of nations and races breaks down under the ever-extending intercommunication characteristic of the period in which we live.

The difficulties of framing a natural classification of man, or one which really represents the relationship of the various minor groups to each other, are well exemplified by a study of the numerous attempts which have been made from the time of Linnæus and Blumenbach onwards. Even in the first step of establishing certain primary groups of equivalent rank there has been no accord. The number of such groups has been most variously estimated by different writers from two up to sixty or more, although it is important to note that there has always been a tendency to revert to the four primitive types sketched out by Linnæus-the European, Asiatic, African, and American-expanded' into five by Blumenbach by the addition of the Malay, and reduced by Cuvier to three by the

The Malay of Blumenbach was a strange conglomeration of the then little known Australian, Papuan, and true Malay types.