Publications 1843-71
Both the Ethnological Society and the Anthropological Society put great emphasis on the publication of valuable relevant material. The prospectus of the Ethnological Society placed as its first objective:
To collect register and digest and to print for the use of the Members and the public at large in a cheap form and at certain intervals such new interesting and useful facts and discoveries as the Society may have in its possession and may from time to time acquire.1
The Anthropological Society expressed even greater enthusiasm for publication in its prospectus,2 both the second and fifth aims relating to publications:
Second. By the publication of reports of papers of abstracts of discussions in the form of a Quarterly Journal; and also by the publication of the principal memoirs read before the Society, in the form of Transactions.
And
Fifth. By the publication of a series of works on Anthropology which will tend to promote the objects of the Society. These works will generally be translations; but original works will also be admissible.