1868. ] (50L 9 
THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT 
OF SCIENCE. 
MEETING AT NORWICH, Aveusr, 1868. 
Tur Presment’s ADDRESS. 
Dr. Hooxer referred at the commencement of his address to his 
own early career, which began thirty years since at the Meeting of 
the British Association at Newcastle. It was to his voyage then 
undertaken, in company with Sir James Ross, in the Antarctic seas, 
that his position as President on that evening, he felt, was due. 
He had not been able to find time to survey the rise of scientific 
Botany in this address, nor to discuss the relation of the allied 
sciences to Botany, as he had wished, but he proposed to touch on 
various matters which appeared to be of interest at the present 
time. First of all, it was necessary to introduce the International 
Congress of Pre-historic Archeology, who were to hold their meetings 
at the same time as those of the British Association. Sir John 
Lubbock was to preside over this meeting, and it would, Dr. Hooker 
hoped, receive the cordial sympathy and support of the scientific men 
then in Norwich. An important matter connected with the science 
of man had been lately under the consideration of the Council of 
the Association itself, which must interest equally the members 
of the Congress. This was the investigation of the habits, manners, 
form, &c., of the indigenous populations of India, especially those 
which erect megalithic monuments. In consequence of repre- 
sentations from the Council, the Government of India had set to 
work to obtain photographs and other information in regard to 
these people. 
“Tt will, no doubt,” said Dr. Hooker, “ surprise many here to 
be told that there exists within 300 miles of the British capital of 
India, a tribe of semi-savages which habitually erects dolmens, 
menhirs, cysts, and cromlechs, almost as gigantic in their proportions, 
and very similar in appearance and construction, to the so-called 
Druidical remains of Western Europe; and what is still more 
curious, though described and figured nearly a quarter of a century 
ago by Col. Yule, the eminent oriental geographer, except by Sir 
John Lubbock they are scarely alluded to in the modern literature 
of pre-historic monuments. In the ‘Bengal Asiatic Journal’ for 
1844, you will find Col. Yule’s description of the Khasia people of 
East Bengal, an Indo-Chinese race, who keep cattle but drink no 
