GLACIAL MAN. — SKERTCHLY. 151 



I can see no, or very little, proof that man has increased in 

 brain-power since palseohthic times ; he has simply a bigger 

 stock of laiowledge — he knows more, he is not Asdser. 



I am deeply grateful to you good Q.ueenslanders for your 

 kindly forbearance to-night. It may seem to have been a night 

 of amazing indiscretion : that this being the Royal Society, 

 and I an old President of yours, should have made my discourse 

 dry. I must only plead the quahties of old \\ine — the best 

 champagne is dry. 



And now to look forward. I see, as Charon shuts off 

 petrol nearing the jetty on the far side of the dark waters. 

 Professor Thomas Mc Kenny Hughes clear-cut against the 

 Avestem sky-hne, atop of a high-level gravel escarpment of the 

 Styx River, stretching out a hand to me. I hear his cry of 

 welcome, and as I step ashore he whelms me wdth confetti 

 made of torn fragments of his contra-Skertclily papers, and as 

 we link arms he murmurs, " Come to the Mammoth and have 

 tiffin with me, and meet your old friend Homo Brandonbedensis \. 

 he is a Pal of mine." 



