l xx ii PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



age of 80. Her mother was a full native, but her father a 

 white man. Many races are, like this, fast dying out, or so 

 modifying their habits and mode of life that very soon the 

 chances of anthropological investigation which still exist 

 will have vanished, and, unless speedily undertaken, much 

 valuable information about them will be lost. In kitchen 

 middens in South Africa are found flat stones with an 

 artificial depression in the centre, the use of which seems 

 uncertain. It is stated that they cannot be for sharpening 

 weapons, and a theory is propounded that they are cooking 

 stones, the depression being to receive the gravy! Not 

 having seen them I cannot attempt to decide. I was also 

 interested in seeing an illustration of a fine stone circle in 

 the Naga Hills in Assam. From the figures standing by the 

 stones, their height would seem to be about 15 feet. There 

 is clear evidence of the smelting of iron in India in the 3rd 

 Century B.C., and there is some reason to believe that iron 

 was used in very early times before 1,000 B.C. In Egypt, 

 iron was used as early as about 1,200 B.C., and in Assyria 

 about 300 years later. This information as to the early use 

 of other metals in Egypt is contained in an article by Flinders 

 Petrie in the first number of " Ancient Egypt " for 1915. 



GENERAL. 



I have already under the heading of Chemistry spoken 

 of the great temporary disadvantages caused by the war to 

 some trades through the shortened supply of dyes and some 

 other chemical products which we have been accustomed 

 to import from Germany, but which it is hoped that before 

 long we shall be in a position to manufacture to the extent 

 required here in England. These remarks apply also in a 

 modified degree to many other articles which have of late 

 years been " made in Germany " and imported for our use, 

 but which could just as well be made in England, if the 

 prices could be kept down to the German ones. For this, 



