PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. , Ixxiii. 



happier condition of mankind which all the discoveries of the 

 past, from age to age and from century to century, unmistakably 

 foretell. At the meeting of the British Association last autumn 

 that progress was, as usual, very clearly shown, but neither time 

 nor your patience will permit me to do more to-day than to 

 point out a few of the discoveries achieved. 



Anthropology, While the physical relationship of man to the 

 lower animals continues to be brought out, the department 

 illustrating culture strikingly shows the wide distinction between 

 the man and the brute. Professor K. Pearson compared the 

 inheritance of mental and moral character in man with the 

 inheritance of his physical character, and Dr. C. Myers expressed 

 great confidence that the future of anthropometry, or the 

 measurement of the different parts of the human body, with the 

 bodies of the past ages, would lead to great results. 



Archeology. In the study of this science, 1903 promises to be 

 a memorable year. Dr. Evans's discoveries at the Palace of 

 Knossos, in Crete, continue to be of the greatest interest as 

 proving the high state of civilisation, and even of luxury, which 

 characterised the early Cretans. In Portugal some neolithic 

 remains have been found similar to those that were discovered 

 in the estuary of the Clyde ; but most astonishing of all was that 

 of alphabetical characters, resembling Cretan script, on an 

 oblong stone amulet, which has started new theories as to the 

 charaters on which the Phoenicians formed their alphabet. The 

 existence of palaeolithic .man in Egypt has been rendered 

 probable by Mr. Beadnell in consequence of the discovery of 

 flint implements of a neolithic type in the northern desert in a 

 deposit along the fringe of an ancient lake. At home a very 

 interesting find of seeds has taken place at Silchester, which has 

 enabled botanists to identify many plants common in England in 

 Roman times. There have also been discoveries of palaeolithic 

 implements in Savernake Forest and at Ipswich, and it has been 

 shown that the gravel in which they were found at Savernake 

 corresponds with the implement-bearing gravels at Southampton 

 Water and Bournemouth, 



