The essays in the present volume are chiefly upon philological and ethnographical subjects: though not exclusively. The earliest was published in 1840, the latest in 1856. In some cases they have formed separate treatises and in some Appendices to larger works. The greater part, however, consists of papers read before the Philological Society of London; a society which has materially promoted the growth of Comparative Philology in Great Britain, and which, if it had merely given to the world the valuable researches of the late Mr. Garnett, would have done more than enough to justify its existence and to prove its usefulness.

As a general rule these papers address themselves to some definite and special question, which commanded the attention of the author either because it was obscure, or because there was something in the current opinions concerning it which, in his eyes, required correction. Researches conducted on this principle can scarcely be invested with any very general interest. Those who take them up are supposed to have their general knowledge beforehand. A wide field and a clear view, they have already taken. At the same time there are, in the distant horizon, imperfect outlines, and in the parts nearer to the eye dim spots where the light is uncertain, dark spots where it is wholly wanting, and, oftener still, spots illumined by a false and artificial light. Some of the details of the following investigations may be uninteresting from their minuteness; some from their obscurity; the minuteness however, and the obscurity which deprive them of general interest make it all the more incumbent on some one to take them up: and it is needless to add that for a full and complete system of ethnographical or philological knowledge all the details that are discoverable should be discovered. This is my excuse (if excuse be needed) for having spent some valuable time upon obscure points of minute interest. Upon the whole, they have not been superfluous. This means that I have rarely, or never, found from any subsequent reading that they had been anticipated. Where this has been the case, the article has been omitted—being treated as a non scriptum. An elaborate train of reasoning submitted to the Ethnographical Society has on this principle been ignored. It was upon the line of migration by which the Polynesian portion of the Pacific islands was peopled. It deduced Polynesia from the Navigator's Islands; the Navigator's Islands, or Samoan Archipelago, from the Ralik and Radak chains; the Ralik and Radak chains from Micronesia; Micronesia from the Philippines, vi Sonsoral and the Pelews. Some time after the paper was read I found that Forster has promulgated the same doctrine. I ought to have known it before. Hence the paper is omitted: indeed it was (though read) never published.

In respect to the others the chief writers who have worked in the same field are Dr. Scouler, Professor Turner, and Professor Buschmann,—not to mention the bibliographical labours of Dr. Ludwig, and the second paper of Gallatin. I have no hesitation in expressing my belief that where they agree with me they do so as independent investigators; claiming for myself, where I agree with them, the same consideration.

Of Hodgson and Logan, Windsor Earle, and other investigators I should have much to say in the way of both acknowledgement and criticism, had India and the Indian Archipelago taken as large a portion of the present volume as is taken by North America. As it is, it is only in a few points that I touch their domain.

The hypothesis that the Asteks (so-called) reached Mexico by sea I retract. Again—the fundamental affinity of the Australian language was a doctrine to which both Teichelmann and Sir G. Grey had committed themselves when the paper on the Negrito languages was written. The papers, however, stand as they stood: partly because they are worth something in the way of independent evidence, and partly because they illustrate allied subjects.