The Opening Meeting. 123 
we are what we are, because we have been made so by our forefathers, 
and therefore it was most natural that we should endeavour to 
ascertain what sort of people our forefathers were, what they did, how 
they lived and acted, and what were their characteristics and history ; 
and the unwritten records in which Wiltshire so greatly abounded were 
to a very great extent the means by which we might arrive at that 
knowledge. It would be idle for anyone like himself who was not 
familiar with archeological matters, to attempt to talk about them, 
but still as an Englishman and asa Wiltshireman it was impossible 
not to feel an interest in them. There were in this county monu- 
ments that carried them back to the earliest races known to exist in 
this land, and the grand old stones which stood on the downs of 
Wiltshire presented a problem still to be solved. Coming down to 
more recent times, Mr. Bouverie spoke of some of the noble structures 
that adorn this county. As a proof of the great wealth and 
population which once distinguished Wiltshire, the speaker men- 
tioned that there were more mills specified in Domesday Book as 
existing in Wiltshire than in any other county in England. That 
gave indirect evidence of the superior wealth and industry that 
characterised Wiltshire in former times. The county was not pos- 
sessed of the great source of wealth of modern time, as it did not 
abound with coal, which attracts population and wealth; but they 
had memorials and proofs of the wealth and prosperity which 
distinguished the district in bygone centuries, and they ought to 
value and cherish them. Mr. Bouverie referred to the success which 
had marked the operations of the Society, and attributed a large 
share of that success to the ability and exertions of Canon Jackson 
who was one of the originators of the institution. One of the 
things which must strike thinking minds in looking back into the 
dim past was the amazing contrast between the manners and customs 
of the times in which we live and those of remote periods. It had 
often been said that in these days “ The poor were poorer, and the rich 
were richer than in past times,” but one part of that statement was 
certainly untrue. No doubt there was now a vast accumulation of 
wealth, but he fully believed that if we had more perfect means of 
comparing the position of the people now classed as poor, with that 
