590 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



all owe our origin to one common parent, Adam, as is proved 

 from the feet, tliat all mankind, throughout the entire universe, 

 are the same. The skeletons of all races of men, when examined, 

 are found to contain two hundred and forty-six bones. The bodies 

 of all men are liable to be attacked by the same diseases. They 

 live the same length of time; their pulse, respiration, and tem- 

 perature of body are all the same. 



And what is more conclusive still, all the tribes of the human 

 family believe in an unseen future existence. All men pray; all 

 men believe in the sanctity of the burial place. Men believe in 

 ghosts, witches and sorceries. An innate belief in futurity was 

 shown by the American savage, who always spoke of the undis- 

 turbed hunting ground that he was to inhabit after this life was 

 ended. The Arabian imagined that he would go to a paradise 

 filled with houries, whose society he was forever to enjoy. The 

 Esquimaux' heaven is supposed by them to abound with the 

 blubber of whales. The people of Asia were the first to believe 

 in God. Asia gave birth to the greatest lawgiver that ever lived — ■ 

 Confucius, whose maxims have stood more than two thousand 

 years, and been adopted by three hundred and fifty millions of 

 men; to the greatest king, Tamerlane; the greatest general, 

 Genghis Khan; the greatest astronomer, Ulug Beg, who deter- 

 mined the latitude of Samarcand, with a quadrant of 180 feet 

 radius; and made a catalogue of the stars, which was printed by 

 order of the University of Oxford, two hundred years after. 

 Caliph Al Maimon determined the obliquity of the ecliptic, ex- 

 plained the nature of twilight, and the importance of allowing 

 for atmospheric refraction in astronomical observations. The 

 figures of arithmetic and algebra. To whom are the human 

 family indebted, if not to him. 



I often hear my agricultural friends discuss birds and insects, 

 both of which they think should by all means be exterminated, 

 and still they are both indispensable to man. In fact, he could 

 not exist were it not for birds, upon whom alone he can depend 

 to protect him from injurious insects and reptiles ; but birds can 

 exist without man. Men are prone thoughtlessly to destroy eggs, 

 not recollecting that from an egg all men, birds and insects 



