ASSOCIATIONS FOR Till-: 4DVANCEMB* D IK r. 



BModadthat IW.Roberta-Au^^ appoint^ in 

 nocMMootoMr.il Sehaefer hi 



.it.-n.l the meeting m Toronto, th. 

 quOTtni I*rt>f. Robert*- Austen to und. 

 duties of general secrvtary .luring thr meeUng in 



Ifa council elected thr Ml. .,..>; f,.n -., .:. 

 science, who hare attend* -ft he NMfod*- 



Uon. : Ttvpnnding member*: hr I K 



r .. ' i:.. .'!' I..M i; . - - . ' !:- 



: and 1 



,,| i hut in accordance with tl 

 he council, n committee waited upon 



Lord Salisbury and brought before him the ques- 

 ' . ,i :.- . . physiosJ 



laboratory. Recently it had b. H.at the 



treasury had ap|Kinted a committee to con 

 Mi feral upon the desirability of establish 

 national physical laboratory for the U-tm. and 

 verification of instruments for physical 

 lion, for the construction and preservation of 



of measurement*, and for the systematic 



determination of physic*! constants and numerical 

 M datt>" useful for scientific and industrial pur- 

 poses, and to n-jH.rt whether tin- work of sin-n an 

 instituti. n. if established, could be associated with 

 any touting or standardizing work already performed 

 Vfcofij or partly at the public cost. 



' resolution was referred to the 



importance t. ; 



upon nment the necessity <>f establishing 



a burvau of ethnoj, .. Britain, which, 



by colleetini; Information with regard to the native 

 noes within and on the borders of the empire, will 

 prove of immense value to science and to the Gov- 

 ernment itself. The (pie-lion was referred to a 

 ned at some length upon it. 

 and the council then resolved to ask the tni-r 



i Museum to allow the proposed bureau 

 to be established in connection with the museum. 



The treasurer reported that the receipts of tin 

 years 1806-*97 had I I th.- payments 



2,945. The amount in the hands of the general 

 treasurer was 2,396. He explained that the bal- 

 ance in his hands was larger than u-ual. owing to 

 the fact that the meeting in Liv-r|M.<.l la-; 

 wa a large and successful one. The expenses of 

 the Liverpool meeting were -lightly above those 

 of the previous year, being 157, as against 148 

 for 1H9.VW. 



In the evening the association met in Massey 

 Hall to hear the inaugural address. Lord I 

 presented his successor, with the foil,, wing words: 



"My ta.sk on the present occasion i- to handover 

 the presidential position of this association to one 

 eminently d.-crvinu' of it; a man who has won 

 world- wide distinct ion as a geologist and an antiqua- 

 rian, while his many-aided gifts and his Denial na- 

 have aroused the admiration and affection of 

 all who have the privilege of his acquaint an. .." 



Inanirnral Addn-sn of the I'r.-juVnt. Sir 

 John Krans chose as the subject of his address 

 -The Antiquity of Man." In opening he -aid: 

 M Once more has the Dominion of Canada invited 

 the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science to bold one of the annual meetings of its 

 members within the Canadian territory, and for a 

 second time has the association had the honor and 

 pleasure of accepting th.- proffer.-! hospitality. In 

 doing so, the association has felt that if bv any 

 possibility the scientific m , locality i's pro- 



moted bv its being the scene of such an 

 claims should be fully recognized of th<.^ 

 though not dwelling I, are .-till 



inhabitants of that Greater Britain who** 

 ]>erity i> so intimately connected with the fortunes 



Her count r\." Ib referred to li 



of thr -scientist- froni the l'nite.1 States as follow-: 



I this yt-ar ; ire of -n- 



iiaMnueh a> t he 



avMK-iatioii of the I'nited States ,,f An, 



-till mourning the loss of her illuMriou- ; 



ili-nt. Prof. COJH and some other learned BOC 



tfl to allow of th,-ir 



memlN-rs coining here to join US. 1 need hardly 

 say how welcome their presence i N nor how gladly 



i to their taking part in our <n 

 and aiding u- l-y int. < : ilioi li; |ii. 



lie term ' international ' seems 

 almost misapplied. It may rather Led, 

 a famil) pit herin^;, in which our n-lati\- 

 less distant in blood, l.ut still intimately connected 

 with us by language, literature, ma hab:- 

 thought. ! Maneou-ly arran.i:.-: 



Then, tiirnii. il.jed of hi- a>i 



.id : " ll appears \< .1 hat my 



lection to this important jo>t may, in the niani. 

 -nit ion by this association of 

 iia-ology as a scienee. It will 



l>e expected of me that I should on the pres- 

 ent occasion lirin^' under review the atato of our 

 present knowledge with regard to the antiquity of 

 man; and probably no litter place could be found 

 for tl.' 'ti of Mich a topic than the adopted 



home of my venerated friend, the late Sir laniel 

 Wilson, who first introduced the word 'pivhi- 

 into the Knglish language." Coin-ernini; pala-olit hie 

 man, he said: "When we return to palaeolithic 

 man, it is satisfactory to feel that we are treading 

 on comparatively secure ground, and that tin 



les of the last forty years in liritain alone en- 

 able us to a great extent to reconstitute hi- hi 

 We may not know the exact ideological period \\ hen 

 first he settled in the British area, but we have 

 good e\ ideticc that he occupied it at a time when 

 the configuration of the surface was entirely differ- 

 ent from what it is at present : when the river val- 

 ley- had not been cut down to anything like their 

 exMintf depth, when the fauna of the country was 

 of a totally different character from that of the 

 present day, when the extension of the southern 

 part of the island seaward was in places Mich that 

 the land was continuous with that of the continent. 

 and when in all probability a far more rainy cli- 

 mate prevailed. We have proofs of the oceapatfoa 

 of the country by man durini; the loni; lapse of 

 time that was necessary for the excavation of the 

 river vail.-)-. \N have found the old floors on 

 which his "habitations were fixed; we have been 

 able to trace him at work on the manufadir 

 flint instruments, and by building up the one upon 

 the other the flakes st'ruck off by the pri: 

 workman in tho-e remote time- we have been able 

 to reconstruct the blocks of Hint which -erv.-d as his 



lal." After di-cu^inu' the ar-uinenN OOH- 

 cernini: t!,. !ithi- man in ' 



n. he ref'-rred to the . . and 



then crossed the Kuropean Continent and spoke of 

 the find.- in the valley of the Kuphrat. 

 .May we not from these data attempt in some de- 

 gree "to build up and reconstruct the early I; 

 of the human family? There, in [ft, in 



a tropical climate, with the n 

 readily at hand, may we not picture to our 

 estors gradually developing fr 

 lowly origfa, acquiring a taste for hunting, if n<t. 

 indeJ-: u-iven t<. protect thein-elv.-- from the 



beasts around thetn. and evolving: the more com- 

 plicated forms of tool- or weapon- from the simpler 

 flakes which had previously served them as knives? 



t imagine that, when once the st;. 

 civilization denoted by these pala-olit hie implements 

 had been reached, the game for the hunter I 



