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PRODUCED BY MAN. 845 



it was possible on many an oceanic island to recover links which 

 had fallen out of the chain of evidence as to the origin of species 

 which the older and larger continents of dry land had furnished ; it 

 was possible also to elucidate the origin, humble and lowly enough, 

 of our own civilisation by what we could see, and not less by what 

 we might fail to discover, in the inchoate civilisations, in similar 

 localities, of semi-savage men. The lines of intercommunication 

 between the most distant parts of our globe, which the navigator 

 with, in his own language, ' a steam-engine under his foot,' is daily 

 weaving into a more and more nearly all-encompassing web, will 

 very shortly have introduced so much of the most recent results of 

 our modern civilisation into what were but lately the most secluded 

 of localities as to rob them of that value and interest for the pur- 

 suers of the knowledge specified, which they up to a few years ago 

 so eminently possessed. 



These few years — for they will be but few — to come, have a great 

 responsibility put upon them in the way of preserving those perish- 

 able and destructible links in the history of the past, which may be 

 made incandescent and luminous for the advancement of knowledge, 

 and to some not inconsiderable extent for the benefiting of man's 

 estate. 



In this work the Society, which has honoured me by inviting me 

 to address them this evening, has borne a distinguished part in the 

 past, and I cannot doubt, but, on the contrary, have many reasons 

 for believing, that it will bear an increasingly important one in the 

 future. 



