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18
TAMIL STUDIES

Grierson and Sir H. Risley do not take the question deeper than saying that the Dravidians are the aboriginal inhabitants of Southern India. The former as a linguist says that the question of the origin and migration of the Dravidian race cannot be solved by the philologist; and the latter as a leading Indian ethnologist tries to find out soine connection between the Dravidians and the Australians; but he is opposed in his conclusion by Sir W. Turner, who has found no cranial connection between the two races. After criticising the other theories concerning the origin and dispersion of the Dravidians, Sir H. Risley comes back to the same ground on which his colleague stood.

According to Hæckel, the Dravidians, the Caucasians, the Basques and the Indo-Germanic races resemble one another in several characteristics, especially in the strong development of the head, which suggests a close relationship between them. Professor Huxley includes them in the smooth-haired division with the North Africans and South Europeans, assuming Australia as the land of their origin. While agreeing with them generally Professors Flower and Lydekker put the Dravidians in the white division of man and observe that in Southern India they are largely mixed with a Negrito element.

This last point is supported by Dr. Topinard who says that the remnants of the black people are at the present day shut up in the mountains and that the ancient inhabitants of the Deccan were identical with the Australians, who probably come from a cross