152 REPORT — 1860. 



Having presided for several years over the Royal Geographical Society, it has been 

 my duty to pass in review the progress made by the sons of Britain in different parts 

 of the world, and it has ever been to me a source of the sincerest gratification to 

 watch the rapid strides made by the colonists of Australia, and to observe how they 

 have carried with them all the energy of our race into the land of their adoption. 

 If I traced with deep interest the explorations of their boldest travellers through the 

 bush — and witnessed with delight the working out of that golden wealth, of which 

 perhaps, because I was a Highlander as well as a geologist, I had a sort of second 

 sight — or if I revelled in seeing their ports filled with ships, and abounding in com- 

 merce — not all these attributes have rejoiced me more than the knowledge I acquired, 

 that our Australian colonists are truly and sincerely attached to Britain and their 

 Sovereign. 



As it is out of my power on the present occasion to advert to all the recent ad- 

 vances in ethnology, I will now only say, that, besides many communications from 

 other gentlemen, including Mr. Lockhart's excellent notes on China, my eminent 

 and valued friend, Mr. John Craufurd, will give us two memoirs; the one, "On the 

 Relation of the Domesticated Animals to Civilization ;" the other, " On the Aryan, 

 or Indo-Germanic Theory ;" each of which will, I doubt not, be worthy of the Pre- 

 sident of the Ethnological Society of London. 



Let me, however, offer a few general observations on those sciences, to the culti- 

 vation of which the business of this Section is devoted. Geography, regarded only as 

 the description of the outlines of the earth, and the determination by astronomical 

 observations of the relative position of hills, rivers, valleys, and coasts, to be laid down 

 by the topographer on a map, is but the key-stone of that splendid science when 

 viewed in its most comprehensive bearings. For, of how much real value is it 

 deprived if not followed in its train by all "the affiliated sciences which relate to the 

 phenomena of our. mother earth! How infinitely is the important basis of our 

 science enriched by the descriptions of the animals and plants which, living on the 

 surface of our planet, are distinguished by forms peculiar to each region — such dis- 

 tribution being coincident with relative differences of climate! 



Again, as a weather-beaten geologist, I know full well, that the science which I 

 have most cultivated would be void of a foundation if it did not rest on the principles 

 of physical geography ; for much of the labour of the geologist consists in restoring, 

 not in imagination, but by a positive appeal to data registered on tablets of stone, 

 the former outlines of sea and earth at different successive periods, whilst he marks 

 the various oscillations of land and water as well as the necessary accompaniments 

 of grand meteorological changes. 



If therefore the geographer is guided to the relative position of his localities by 

 the lights of astronomy, he also knows that accurate observation of all terrestrial 

 changes is of the highest value in enabling his ally the geologist to interpret and 

 read off the former conditions of the crust of the "earth. Just as geography in its 

 present phase is necessarily connected with ethnology, so its earliest features as a 

 science can best be thoroughly comprehended by the geologist. His is the province to 

 bring to the mind's eye various relations of land and water through the olden periods, 

 when most of our present continents were formed beneath the sea ; and to trace the 

 successive elevations and depressions which characterized epochs long anterior to 

 the existence of man. Even in those lerr.ote times when some lands were elevated 

 and others depressed, we have ascertained that the waters and the earth were occu- 

 pied by various animals which successively lived and died to be followed by other and 

 more highly organized races, until at length a being endowed with reason was created. 



And when, having gone through all the long epochs of geological time, we ap- 

 proach the period when man appeared, how interesting is it to endeavour to unravel 

 the changes which our lands underwent from that recent geological dale when the 

 British Isles formed part of the terra firma of Europe ! Then at a later period, how 

 inviting is it to mark the signs of the commixture of the rudest and earliest works of 

 man with the remains of animals, most of which are now extinct, vet mixed up with 

 others which have lived on to our own day ! 



Thus, whilst the geological geographer visits the banks of the Somme, and sees 

 such an assemblage of relics beneath great accumulations formed bv water (as I have 

 recently witnessed myself), he is compelled to infer, that at the pe'riod when such a 



