122 The Twenty-first General Meeting. 
accomplished by the zeal, however ardent, of a few; but must be 
the result of the combined efforts of many ; so true and so applicable 
to its own pursuits is the Society’s motto, emblazoned, as you will 
see it, by amateur hands, as you enter the Museum :— 
‘ Multorum manibus, grande levatur onus.’ ” 
Mr. E. P. Bouvert said he had been requested to move the 
adoption of the Report, which he did with very great pleasure. 
He did not however consider that he was worthy of so distinguished 
a position or of calling attention to the satisfactory points to which it 
referred. The only claim he could advance to be considered an 
archeologist was founded on the fact uf his being a member of this 
Society. He had been hoping that he would have been accompanied 
to-day by a friend whose name was almost of world-wide celebrity 
—he meant Sir John Lubbock—who had promised to come with 
him to this meeting, but unfortunately he found he had a previous 
engagement which prevented him doing so. Sir John was a 
gentleman eminently qualified to have addressed them with advantage 
and instruction, and was well known for his zeal in the pursuit of 
archeological subjects. He was glad to say Sir John had become a 
Wiltshire proprietor,as many present might be aware,and had acquired 
a portion of Avebury, and had expressed an ardent wish to preserve 
those ancient monuments there which some seemed anxious to destroy. 
He remembered quite well while travelling across this county, from 
north to south, some 4.0 or 45 years ago, seeing a party of men breaking 
up the grand old stonesatAvebury, for the purpose of mending the roads. 
Now let them hope that partly owing to the exertions and interposition 
of such Societies as this, that spirit was passing away, and that there 
was a desire to maintain those mysterious monuments which existed 
as interesting links between us and our forefathers. We were a 
nation having a great past, and it was natural we should desire to 
see what that past had been, and it was only by investigating these 
matters in a scientific mode that a knowledge of that past could be 
obtained. We knew we were a great people now, and that our name 
and our language were known all over the world—perhaps more 
known than those of any other nation that had previously existed—but 
