cviii. PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



feat has not yet been performed, but a record has been estab- 

 lished by Commander Peary's last expedition, which reached a 

 latitude of 87 degrees 6' N., a point only 203 miles from the 

 Pole. Various enterprises have lately been proposed, including 

 a journey to the North Pole by an airship. What is said to be 

 the highest camp ever made was used for two nights on the 

 Numkun range in Cashmir at a height of 21,000 feet, the party 

 ascending 2,000 feet higher. Explorations have been made in 

 the Ruwenzori range in Central Africa and elsewhere, but I can 

 better refer to some of these in my next division. An important 

 meeting of the International Geodetic Conference took place at 

 Buda-Pest in September last, where the extensive and successful 

 surveying measurements in South Africa were discussed, besides 

 other matters. The Simplon Tunnel has been used for a base 

 line, and was accurately measured in five days, during which it 

 was placed at the disposal of the geodesists by the railway 

 company. 



ARCHEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



The International Congress of Archaeology was held in April, 

 1906, at Monaco and discussed amongst other things the 

 question of the human origin of the primitive forms of flints 

 called eoliths, which had been shown to be identical in shape 

 with some produced in cement mills. Though some forms 

 found in certain districts seemed to be distinct from the cement 

 mills products, opinions were divided, and it would seem 

 unsatisfactory to assume the existence of man at any period on 

 their evidence alone. The art of Palaeolithic man, as seen on 

 the walls of caves in the drawings of animals in great variety, 

 was also exhibited. Man was less frequently figured, and 

 generally with grotesque faces or masks. It has been found 

 from an elaborate series of measurements that the modern 

 Egyptians show no sensible difference in head measurement 

 from their earliest ancestors. Excavations in Crete have pro- 

 duced a new form of Greek pottery of a date earlier than 

 2,000 B.C. The houses containing it appear to have been 



