156 LIFE OF FLOWER 



termination was a little exaggerated, it is no less urgent 

 at the present day. 



" In another half century," he said, " the Australians, 

 the Melanesians, the Maories, and most of the Poly- 

 nesians will have followed the Tasmanians to the grave. 

 We shall well merit the reproach of future generations 

 if we neglect our present opportunities of gathering 

 together every fragment of knowledge that can still be 

 saved, of their languages, customs, social polity, manu- 

 factures, and arts. The preservation of tangible 

 evidence of their physical structure is, if possible, still 

 more important ; and surely this may be expected of 

 that nation, above all others, which by its commercial 

 enterprise and wide-spread maritime dominion has done, 

 and is doing, far more than any in effecting that dis- 

 tinctive revolution." 



What are we doing at the present day, it may be 

 asked, to avoid this reproach ? If we may judge by the 

 slowness with which anthropological specimens came 

 into the national collections (and it is difficult to select 

 a better test), the answer must surely be, I am afraid, 

 in the negative. 



Of a still more popular type than the preceding was 

 a lecture on the " Races of Men," delivered by Flower 

 in the City Hall, Glasgow, on 28th November 1878, 

 and published as a separate pamphlet. 



The third, and perhaps the most interesting lecture 

 given by Flower during the year under consideration, 

 was the one at Manchester on November 3Oth, on the 

 " Aborigines of Tasmania," which is published in the 

 tenth series of Manchester Science Lectures. In this 

 discourse Flower traced the sad story of European 



