their rise, growth and decay, and languages once well known are entirely forgotten, foreign languages taking their place as though they were native. Thus Keltic is extinct in Cornwall ; Sclavonic has disappeared in Prussia ; Accadian, the home speech of a highly civilised Turanian race in Asia Minor, was completely rooted out by the conquering Semites. Coming to our own country, we find the Brahman settlers in the Tamil land speak only a Dravidian language forgetting their Sanskrit dialects. The entire native population of the Tamil-akam--aborigines, Dravidians as well as Aryans-speak either Tamil or an allied language of the Dravidian family. No successful attempt has yet been made to analyse the Tamil language and to write its history in a purely philological spirit. Dr. Caldwell was the first to trace some distant affinity of Tamil with the Uralo-Altaic languages. Some philologists, however, seem to think that he was not quite successful in the attempt. We shall discuss this question more fully in its proper place.
(b) Anthropologists place rather too much confidence in the absolute certainty of the nasal and cephalic indices, of hair and colour as permanent tests of racial distinction. Sir Herbert Risley, Sir William Turner and Dr. Topinard rely on the constancy of cranial measurements, assuming the form of the head as a persistent character that is not liable to be modified by the action of artificial selection. These scientists, however, do not agree among themselves in certain important respects.
