JAMES COWLES, a great ethnologist, was born at Ross in Herefordshire on the 11th of February 1786, and was educated at London and Edinburgh for the medical profession. He was early led to devote his attention to ethnology by hearing objections brought against the Mosaic account of the origin of our race. His first thoughts on the subject were given in the thesis which he delivered on the occasion of taking his M.D. at Edinburgh. On his settlement at Bristol in 1810 as a physician, his inquiries assumed a more definite form. He addressed himself to the study in the most able and systematic manner. The most unwearyed research, the most varied erudition, and the most sagacious deliberation, were brought to bear upon the subject. All the evidences in favour of a plurality of races were first either directly refuted or at least removed. The different kindreds, as described by many different authors, were next passed in review; their varieties of form, colour, language, and habits, were contrasted and compared; and the differences and resemblances were carefully ascertained. The differences were concluded to be chiefly the result of civilization; and the resemblances were adduced as a proof of the unity of the human race. The result of these investigations was a book published in 1813 under the title of Researches into the Physical History of Man. Nor did the enthusiastic ethnologist halt on the way of research upon which he had so successfully entered. It is true that during the next thirteen years his large and ever-open mind was occupied with an astonishing multiplicity of engagements. He maintained a large practice in Bristol and its neighbourhood, delivered lectures on physiology and medicine, and wrote treatises on fever, epilepsy, nervous diseases, and insanity. He also made himself an adept in German, Greek, and Hebrew, studied Egyptian mythology and history, and contributed various articles to periodicals. Yet in 1826, when the second edition of his Researches was published, it was found that his attention had been chiefly occupied in maturing and illustrating his ethnological opinions, and that much of his miscellaneous acquisitions had been employed for that purpose. Many improvements on the former edition were observable. A wider, and at the same time a more minute view had been taken of the families of mankind. Greater prominence had been given to language as a mark of affinity. Especially had the discovery been made that the Celtic tongues and the Sanscrit were sprung from the same stock. In fact, the book, by developing to its full extent the philological element in ethnology, had introduced a new era in the history of the science. Still the author with unwearyed endeavour continued to correct and expand his views. An Analysis of the Egyptian Mythology, which he published in 1838, assisted him considerably in carrying out this purpose. His removal also to London in 1841 as inspector of the lunatic asylums was probably not without its effect. He did not cease his laborious investigations until he had completed the third edition of his work in five closely-printed volumes. The great task of Dr Prichard's life was now accomplished. He died in London in December 1848. At the time of his death Prichard was president of the Ethnological Society of London and a fellow of several learned societies both at home and abroad. The latest edition of his Researches is that in 5 vols. 8vo, London, 1831. An abstract of this work, which he published in 1843 under the title of The Natural History of Man, has gone through several editions. (See "A Biographical Sketch of Dr Prichard," by Thomas Hodgkin, M.D., in The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. xlvii.)