448 



NATURE 



{August 2 2, 1878 



Lastly, great progress has been made in the last twenty 

 years in the direction of the discovery of the indications of man 

 in a fossil state. My memory goes back to the time when anybody 

 who broached the notion of the existence of fossil man would have 

 been simply laughed at. It was held to be a canon of palaeon- 

 tology that man could not exist in a fossil state. I don't know 

 why, but it was so ; and that fixed idea acted so strongly on men's 

 minds that they shut their eyes to the plainest possible evidence. 

 Within the last twenty years we have an astonishing accumula- 

 tion of evidence of the existence of man in ages antecedent to 

 those of which we have any historical record. What the actual 

 date of those times was, and what their relation is to our known 

 historical epochs, I don't think anybody is in a position to say. 

 But it is beyond all question that man, and not only man, but 

 what is more to the purpose, intelligent man, existed at times 

 when the whole physical conformation of the country was totally 

 different from that which characterises it now. Whether the 

 evidence we now possess justifies us in going back further, or 

 not — that we can get back as far as the epoch of the drift is, I 

 think, beyond any rational question or doubt ; that may be re- 

 garded as something settled — but when it comes to a question 

 as to the evidence of tracing back man further than that— and 

 recollect drift is only the scum of the earth's surface — I must 

 confess that to my mind the evidence is of a very dubious cha- 

 racter. 



Finally, we come to the very interesting question — as 

 to whether, with such evidence of the existence of man in 

 those times as we have before us, it is possible to trace 

 in that brief history any evidence of the gradual modi- 

 fication from a human type somewhat different from that 

 which now exists to that which is met with at pre- 

 sent. I must confess that my opinion remains exactly what 

 it was some eighteen years ago when I published a little book 

 which I was very sorry to hear my friend, Prof. Flower, allude 

 to yesterday, because I had hoped that it would have been for- 

 gotten amongst the greater scandals of subsequent times. I did 

 there put forward the opinion that what is known as the Nean- 

 derthal skull is, of human remains, that which presents the most 

 marked and definite characteristics of a lower type — using the 

 language in the same sense as we would use it in other branches 

 of zoology. I believe it to belong to the lowest form of human 

 being of which we have any knowledge, and we know from the 

 remains accompanying that human being, that as far as all fun- 

 damental points of structure were concerned, he was as much a 

 man — could wear boots just as easily — as any of us, so that I think 

 the question remains pretty much where it was. I don't know 

 that there is any reason for doubting that the men who existed 

 at that day were in all essential respects similar to the men who 

 exist now. But I must point out to you that this conviction is by 

 no means inconsistent with the doctrine of evolution. The 

 horse, which existed at that time, was in all essential respects 

 identical with the horse which exists now. But we happen to 

 know that going back further in time the horse presents us with 

 a series of modifications by which it can be traced back from an 

 earlier type. Therefore it must be deemed possible that man is 

 in the same position, although the facts we have before us with 

 respect to him tell in neither one way nor the other. I have 

 now nothing more to do than to thank you for the great kind- 

 ness and .attention with which you have listened to these 

 informal remarks. 



SECTION E. 



geography. 



Opening Address by the President, Prof. Sir C. 

 Wyville Thomson, F.R.S. 



In doing me the honour to select me to preside over this 

 section on the present occasion, the Council of the British 

 Association have doubtless had in view the part which it has been 

 my privilege to take in contributing to the physical description 

 of the earth, as director of the civilian scientific staff on board 

 H.M.S. Challenger. I will not, therefore, apologise for 

 following the example of several of my more immediate pre- 

 decessors in leaving to others the subject of topographical geo- 

 graphy which I have never made a special study, and directing 

 your attention for the short time at my disposal to advances 

 which have been made of late years in certain directions in the 

 application of the physical and natural sciences to the illustration 

 of the general condition of the earth. 



Before doing so, however, I must refer to the great geo- 

 graphical event of the year which has passed since the geo- 

 graphical section of the British Association last met — the return 

 of the African explorer, Henry Moreland Stanley, As the 

 graphic account which Mr. Stanley has given of his journey 

 " through the dark continent " is in all our hands, and as we 

 may hope to have an opportunity during this meeting of hearing 

 something further of his adventures from the great traveller 

 himself, it will not be necessary for me at present to enter into 

 any details either with regard to the course taken by his expedi- 

 tion or to the brilliant results which it has achieved. It is, 

 however, incumbent upon us in this place to acknowledge once 

 more the flood of light which Stanley has thrown upon the 

 geography of Central Africa, and to express our wondering 

 admiration of the iron will and the daring intrepidity which 

 carried him through ihese long years of labour and difficulty and 

 danger. Although, in reading Stanley's narrative, we may be 

 forced to regret some of the dark scenes by which his terrible 

 march was chequered, still no one who has not himself had some 

 dealings with savages can fully understand how entirely the 

 action of a leader, solely responsible for the lives of his party, 

 must be guided in every emergency by considerations which he 

 alone is in a position to weigh. 



During the last few years a factor, so altered in its propor- 

 tions that it has appeared almost new, has entered into the 

 calculations of the naval executive departments of all the 

 maritime powers ; and in harmony with the rapid advance of 

 natural knowledge and the widening recognition of its practical 

 value, many opportunities, hitherto too often lost, have been 

 taken advantage of. Latterly almost all special expeditions, 

 whether despatched avowedly with the object of extending the 

 boundaries of science, or for hydrographic purposes, or for 

 training naval cadets, or for drilling the inmates of a peniten- 

 tiary, or pioneering commercial enterprise, ' as in the case of 

 Capt. Wiggins' late excursions to the mouth of the Yenisei, have 

 been supplied more or less fully with the means of scientific 

 observation, and have been in many cases accompanied by 

 observers trained in one department or another of physical 

 research. 



I will simply name among many such equipped and instructed 

 expeditions of these later days, the splendid circumnavigating 

 voyage of the Austrian frigate N'ovara, under the command of 

 Admiral von Wiillerstorf-Urbair. The report of the scientific 

 results of this expedition has been published by the Austrian 

 Government in eighteen beautifully illustrated volumes, and the 

 completion of this work, after seventeen years of heavy labour, 

 was one of the scientific events of the year 1877. The voyage of 

 the Italian corvette Magenta round the world, so well chronicled 

 by Prof. Enrico Hillyer Giglioli ; the very important sounding 

 voyages of Capt. Belknap, in the American surveying ship 

 Tuscarora ; the Hassler expedition, the last crowning effort with 

 which the elder Agassiz closed a long and brilliant career de- 

 voted to the study and illustration of nature, and the many 

 scientific explorations undertaken from year to year by the 

 officers of the American coast survey, with the co-operation of 

 the younger Agassiz and Count Pourtales ; the tentative cruises 

 of the British gunboats Lightning and Poi-cupine, culmi- 

 nating in the Challenger expedition ; the scientific voyage round 

 the world of the German frigate Gazelle; the several expeditions 

 sent out by different powers to observe the transit of Venus ; the 

 German Arctic expedition, under Capt. Koldewey ; the several 

 Swedish expeditions, so rich in zoological results, to the Spitz- 

 bergen Sea, under the guidance of Otto Torell, Nordenskjold, 

 and others ; the exhaustive researches into the conditions physical 

 and biological of the North Sea, by the North Sea Commission, 

 under the direction of Dr. H. A. Meyer; the voyage of the 

 Tegethoff, which Lieut. Payer has rendered ever memorable by 

 his thrilling story of disaster, success, and heroism ; the Arctic 

 voyage of the Alert and the Discovery, of which Sir George Nares 

 has just published the semi-official narrative, a simple and charm- 

 ing account of almost superhuman effort and insuperable obstruc- 

 tion, which it is impossible to read without a feeling of regret 

 that the devoted little band had attempted what was so hopeless, 

 and at the same time a conviction that if their task had been 

 practicable by human skill and bravery, it must certainly have 

 been accomplished. But although this expedition of necessity 

 failed in its main object, that of reaching the I'ole, the additional 

 information which we gain from Capt. Nares' volume and from 

 the more popular sketch of the voyage by Capt. Markham on 

 the physical condition of the Arctic Sea is in the highest degree 



