1 8 The Period from 1861 to 1870 



highest recognized aims shall be toward material prosperity, rather than toward in- 

 tellectual development and progress. 



J. W. Foster (geography), president at the Salem meeting in August, 

 1869, delivered his address as retiring president of the Association at the 

 meeting held at Troy, Xew York, in August, 1870. Foster's address was 

 devoted to the wide variations in climate, including the glacial advances and 

 retreats, that characterized the Tertiary and later periods almost down to 

 the present time. His remarks on the resulting changes in plant and animal 

 forms, and on prehistoric man, are interesting illustrations of the mixtures 

 of fact and fancy that followed the first glimpses into an enormous and al- 

 most entirely unsuspected long past of geological, hiological and human his- 

 tory. Referring to man during the Ice Age, he said (vol. 19, pp. 1-19) : 



In such a climate and on such a soil we can well imagine that agriculture formed no 

 part of the occupation of the primitive man. He gathered not the kindly fruits of the 

 earth, but was essentially a predaceous animal. The few skulls that have been re- 

 covered, would indicate that he was low in the scale of intellectual organization, — a 

 small brain, a retreating forehead, and oblique jaws. In capacity he was below the 

 Australian and New Zealander. In stature he was dwarfed, but was broad-shouldered 

 and robust, — the result of vigorous exertion and out-door exposure. He was carni- 

 vorous, and, perhaps, a raw flesh-eater ; for in the jaws which have been disinterred, 

 the incisor teeth are much worn, — a peculiarity which has been noticed in those of the 

 flesh-eating Esquimaux. This fact ought not to be cited to his disadvantage, for in an 

 Arctic climate where the animal heat is so rapidly abstracted, man requires a highly 

 nitrogenous food. Thus we find our own countryman, Kane, when imprisoned in the 

 ice of Rensselaer Harbor, resorting to raw walrus-meat, and rolling it as a sweet 

 morsel under his tongue. . . . 



But we must accord to him one redeeming trait. That homage which in all ages and 

 among all nations, the living pay to the dead ; those ceremonies which are observed at 

 the hour of final separation; that care which is exerted to protect the manes from all 

 profane intrusion; and those delicate acts, prompted by love or affection, which we 

 fondly hope, will smooth the passage of the parting spirit to the happy land, — all these 

 observances our rude ancestors maintained. These facts show that, deep as man may 

 sink in barbarism, brutal as he may become in his instincts, there is still a redeeming 

 spirit which prompts to higher aspirations, and that to him, even, there is no belief so 

 dreary as that of utter annihilation. 



Foster closed his address with a survey of possible causes of glaciation, 

 concluding that they are almost certainly extra-terrestrial. 



On the subject of cooperation among scientists from various fields he 

 said : 



There is such an intimate connection between the several branches of science, that 

 the researches in one held often throw light upon the obscure points in another. In 

 the solution of this difficult problem, the geologist may invoke, and I trust not un- 

 successfully, the aid of the astronomer. 



