SECTION H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 



THE ARCHEOLOGY OF SCOTLAND. 



ADDRESS BY 



SIR GEORGE MACDONALD, K.C.B., F.B.A., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



When I was invited to preside over the deliberations of an important 

 section of tlie British Association, I felt that a great distinction had been 

 conferred on me. In the interval my appreciation of the honour has not 

 become less high, but my sense of the responsibilities it brings has 

 deepened very considerably. It is no light task for an amateur like 

 myself to endeavour to fill a place that has been occupied by a long line 

 of men eminent in one department or another of the particular branch of 

 science with which we are concerned here. Above all, I fear that, in the 

 scanty leisure which my daily work allows me, it has been hard — perhaps 

 I should frankly say impossible — to find time to concentrate my thoughts 

 on the preparation of an address that should be worthy of the tradition 

 established by my predecessors in the chair. If that does not excuse the 

 discursiveness into which I have been betrayed, it will at least serve to 

 explain it. 



Nor is my plea of extenuating circumstances yet exhausted. When 

 I promised to speak to you on ' The Archaeology of Scotland,' I contem- 

 plated giving you some account of the more recent advances that have 

 been made by workers north of the Border. Since I chose my subject 

 I have been forestalled by the publication of Mr. Graham Callander's 

 paper in the last issue of Archceologia. It would be idle for me to try 

 to add anything to that admirably comprehensive and lucid summary, 

 and I can do no more than commend it to your careful attention. The 

 obvious line of approach being thus barred, I have had to cast about for 

 a suitable alternative. In the end one after another of the various possi- 

 bilities that presented themselves has been set aside in favour of some- 

 thing in the nature of a very general review. To those who are unfamiliar 

 with our problems in Scotland it may be of interest to learn a little of their 

 extent and character and of how they came to assume their present form, 

 while to those upon whom the duty of solving them rests, a backward 

 glance at the progress already achieved may perhaps bring a measure of 

 encouragement and stimulus. 



The first movement towards an organised study of Scottish antiquities 

 dates from the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The Society of 

 Antiquaries of Scotland was founded in 1780, and with it there came into 

 existence what is now the National Museum. The leading spirit in the 

 enterprise was David Erskine, eleventh Earl of Buchan. If we may trust 

 Sir Walter Scott, who characterised him as ' a person whose immense 

 vanity, bordering on insanity, obscured, or rather eclipsed, very con- 

 siderable talents,' Lord Buchan was not altogether a promising sponsor 



