100 A. STEADLING — ANNIYERSAET ADDEESS. 



from inanition ; and man must succumb, wholesale and rapidly, 

 in the precise order and precedence of his boasted civilization. 

 Science, which has prolonged his existence far and remarkably 

 beyond the span of any other creature, can do no more for him ; 

 science will speak the last word uttered upon earth, and that 

 word will be one of sheer negation and despair. Many centuries, 

 however, have yet to elapse before that word shall be spoken, and 

 it may be that man is destined to spend the declining years of his 

 racial career under happier physical conditions than those which 

 have hitherto obtained. Already signs are apparent of what is 

 probably an impending universal migration towards those regions 

 where, and where only, the delight and majesty of life can be 

 fully developed and appreciated, the tropics. Probably the same 

 thought has occurred to everyone who has lived in those regions 

 which was expressed by the late H. W. Bates, though it may not 

 be given to all to clothe it with such grace of diction as he 

 does when he says that " although humanity can reach an 

 advanced degree of culture in high latitudes by battling with 

 the inclemencies of ISTature, it is under the equator alone that the 

 race of the future will attain to complete fruition of man's glorious 

 and beautiful heritage, the earth." 



