These were the data on which the science of Ethnology, in its restricted sense, was to be built. The earliest ethnologists utilised the material mainly with a view to elucidating ethnic relationships, and to producing systematic classifications of the various races of mankind. Later workers such as Ratzel and Reclus produced systematic descriptions of races, peoples, and areas. A third method was that of Tylor, the chief exponent of Comparative Ethnology. [Sidenote: =Systematic Works on Ethnology.=] The earlier attempts at race classification were based merely on physical characters, and are dealt with elsewhere (Chap. VI.). During the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries geographical discovery brought a mass of new facts to light, especially in the realm of natural history; and in no branch of that science were the effects so marked as in that of Anthropology. The marshalling of a vast array of new observations and deductions required a broad mind, wide knowledge, and shrewd reasoning powers. These, together with a sound training in anatomy, an unusual acquaintance with philology, and some eminence in psychology, produced the monumental work of Prichard. [Illustration: J. C. PRICHARD. ] [Sidenote: =Prichard.=] James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848) showed, when a boy, a remarkable aptness for foreign languages. He was never sent to school, but was taught by various tutors, from whom he learnt Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and Spanish. His father, a merchant, and member of the Society of Friends, lived for a time in Bristol, and there the boy began his practical study of anthropology, spending his time by the docks, watching the foreign sailors, and chatting with them in their own tongues. Later on he chose medicine for his profession, less on account of any special liking for it than because it afforded him opportunities for indulging his anthropological tastes. His first contribution to the science was his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, which was entitled _De generis humani varietate_, published in 1813 in an expanded form as _Researches into the Physical History of Man_. It was still further expanded in 1826, and a five-volume edition was issued between 1836 and 1847. In 1843 appeared another monumental work, _The Natural History of Man_, “comprising inquiries into the modifying influence of physical and moral agencies on the different tribes of the human family.”