28 ANNUAL MEETING. 
The Lorp CuHancettor.—Mr. President, ladies, and gentlemen: I 
have to perform a duty on your behalf in which I have no doubt I 
shall have the sympathy and the approval of you all, and that is to 
propose that our best thanks be presented to Professor Sayce for the 
Annual Address now delivered; and I have an addition to make to 
that resolution, but for the moment I will pause at the first part of 
the resolution. I suppose there is nothing more interesting in an 
Institution of this character than the discovery of those relics of 
the past to which allusion has been made; when we remember the 
darkness that has surrounded the ancient history of the Egyptians, 
and when we look back some seventy or eighty years ago and read 
the history of Renourd and such Essays we feel there was some 
excuse for not knowing the history of Egypt; but now the darkness 
has rolled away, and the result of recent discoveries is to light up a 
period that has hitherto been lost in darkness: but I am afraid in 
the exultation one feels in looking at the discovery of these buried 
treasures, one is apt, sometimes, to forget the deep debt of gratitude 
which we owe to those who have brought these things to light 
(cheers). It is easy to listen with deep interest to such a narrative 
as we have had to-night, and to the indications of a civilisation 
almost earlier than we dreamt of ; but I fear we do not always re- 
member the long study and the careful labour that has been 
required to put the disjointed pieces together, and to elucidate the 
history that there lies buried, and which is being brought to light 
by men like Professor Sayce, and, therefore, we should endeavour 
to recognise the deep debt of gratitude that we owe to such men 
(cheers). I think we should incompletely do our duty if we did 
not add our thanks to those who have read papers during the 
session, and to Dr. Wright for reading the paper we have just 
heard, and when we regard such an array of consonants from which 
humanity almost starts back, in reading a paper of this description, . 
we cannot but feel admiration for the way in which Dr. Wright has 
performed his task. I beg, therefore, to move the resolution stand- 
ing in my name (cheers). | 
Monsieur EK. Navinre. — Mr. President, my lords, ladies, and 
gentlemen : I have great pleasure in seconding the admirable resolu- 
tion put forward by the Lord Chancellor of England, and I will say 
very few words, as English is not my native tongue. Certainly the 
