8ir John Evans' Presidential Address. 459 



of necessity have been fasliioued from material imported from Asia 

 could no longer be maintained. In one respect the Arohauologist 

 differed in opinion from the Mineralogist, namely, as to the 

 propriety of chipping off fragments from perfect and highly-finished 

 specimens for the purpose of submitting them to microscopic 

 examination. 



When they came to discuss that remote age in which were 

 found the earliest traces at present known of man's appearance 

 upon earth, the aid of Geology and Palaeontology became absolutely 

 imperative. 



The changes in the surface configuration and in the extent of 

 the land, especially in a country like Britain, as well as the 

 modifications of the fauna and flora since those days, had been 

 such that the archtBologist pure and simple was incompetent to 

 deal with them, and he must either himself undertake the study 

 of these other sciences or call experts in them to his assistance. 

 The evidence that man had already appeared upon the earth 

 was afforded by stone implements wrought by his hands, and 

 it fell strictly within the province of the archcBologist to judge 

 whether given specimens were so wrought or not ; it rested with 

 the geologist to determine their stratigrajDhical or chronological 

 position, while the palteontologist could pronounce upon the age 

 and character of the associated fauna and flora. 



Of late years the general tendency of those engaged upon the 

 question of the antiquity of the human race had been in the 

 direction of seeking for evidence by which the existence of Man 

 upon the earth could be carried back to a date earlier than that 

 of the Quaternary gravels. 



There is little doubt that such evidence would eventually be 

 forthcoming, but, judging fi-om all probability, it was not in 

 Northern Europe that the cradle of the human race would eventually 

 be discovered, but in some part of the world more favoured by 

 a tropical climate, where abundant means of subsistence could 

 be procured, and where the necessity for warm clothing did not 

 exist. 



With Palasolithic man, we were treading on comparatively 

 secure ground, and the discoveries of the last forty years in Britain 

 alone enabled us to a great extent to reconstitute his history. We 

 might not know the exact geological period when first he settled 

 in the British area, but we had good evidence that he occupied 

 it at a time when the configuration of the surface was entirely 

 different from what it is at present ; when the river valleys had not 

 been cut down to anything like their existing depth, when the 

 fauna of the country was of a totally different character from that 

 of the present day, when the extension of the southern part of 

 the island seaward was in places such that the land was continuous 

 with that of the continent, and when in all probability a far 



