264 The Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting. 
its antiquities. In Greece and Asia Minor Dr. Schlieman is the 
hero of the day. He has raked out of its ashes a city which is 
believed to be Troy. At Mycenz again his discoveries are most in- 
teresting, and the more so because nothing, so to speak, is ever” 
heard about the place in the prose history of Greece. It is really 
only known by the mention of it in the Iliad as “a place abounding 
in gold,” and now after so many centuries, a pickaxe archeologist, 
suddenly fills up the omission of history, and confirms the more 
ancient poet, by striking upon the very gold in which Mycene 
abounded. Pass on eastward to Jerusalem, one of the most inter- 
esting cities in the world. Of its ancient greatness very little is 
left. The site of the great temple is known, and part of a terrace 
wall which supported it still exists, but the date of it is uncertain. 
There, however, is also a Society of English archzologists at work, 
and besides that, another company is busy in surveying Palestine, 
for the purposes of clearing up its geography. I will not go farther 
Fast, than just to remind you of Nineveh and Babylon; and of the 
valuable evidence to Scripture History, obtained from the very curious 
inscriptions on stone and terra cotta, which were so wonderfully 
interpreted by the late Mr.GeorgeSmith,of the British Museum. One 
might, indeed, go all round the world, for we can hardly take up a 
newspaper without seeing some paragraph that mentions ‘ An- 
* 
tiquities”’ discovered in countries not much, at least not familiarly 
known to us; proving, that although we speak of them as new, they 
really are old inhabited countries ; and that there is, indeed, a very 
wide field still inviting the curiosity of archzologists of this class, 
for a long time to come. To return homewards. Our Scottish 
neighbours are continually producing highly-finished works of illus- 
tration, which show that they take a deep interest in their rational 
antiquities. The Welsh, as in duty bound, deal with the Ancient 
Britons, and can fill many shelves in book-cases with the labours of 
Cambrian Archeologists. In Ireland there is not only a great 
deal left from ancient times that is most curious; but there is a 
very increasing spirit among her scholars and literary men, to 
develope and preserve their Antiquities. They have several Arche- 
ological Societies; and a recent Report of the Commissioners of Public 
OO ee 
