ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 93 

 ARCHEOLOGY AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN* 



By Sib JOHN EVANS, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., Sc. D. 



ONCE more lias the Dominion of Canada invited the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science to hold 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 the proffered hospitality. In doing so the association has 

 felt that if by any possibility the scientific welfare of a locality is 

 promoted by its being the scene of such a meeting, the claims should 

 be fully recognized of those who, though not dwelling in the British 

 Isles, are still inhabitants of that Greater Britain, whose prosperity 

 is so intimately connected with the fortunes of the mother country. 

 Here, especially, as loyal subjects of one beloved sovereign, the six- 

 tieth year of whose beneficent reign has just been celebrated with equal 

 rejoicing in all parts of her empire, as speaking the same tongue, 

 and as in most instances connected by the ties of one common parent- 

 age, we are bound together in all that can promote our common in- 

 terests. There is, in all probability, nothing that will tend more 

 to advance those interests than the diffusion of science in all parts 

 of the British Empire, and it is toward this end that the aspirations 

 of the British Association are ever directed, even if, in many in- 

 stances, the aim may not be attained. 



We are, as already mentioned, indebted to Canada for previous 

 hospitality, but we must also remember that, since the time when we 

 last assembled on this side of the Atlantic, the Dominion has pro- 

 vided the association with a president, Sir William Dawson, whose 

 name is alike well known in Britain and America, and whose reputa- 

 tion is indeed world-wide. We rejoice that we have still among 

 us the pioneer of American geology, who, among other discoveries, 

 first made us acquainted with the " Air Breathers of the Coal," the 

 terrestrial or, more properly, arboreal saurians of the New Brunswick 

 and Nova Scotia coal measures. 



On our last visit to Canada, in 1884, our place of assembly was 

 Montreal, a city which is justly proud of her McGill University; to- 

 day we meet within the buildings of another of the universities of 

 this vast Dominion, and in a city the absolute fitness of which for 

 such a purpose must have been foreseen by the native Indian tribes 

 when they gave to a small aggregation of huts upon this spot the 

 name of Toronto " the place of meetings." Our gathering this 



* Presidential address delivered at the annual meeting of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science at Toronto, 1897. 



