Januabt 25, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



125 



but we must provide a suitable atmosphere 

 for our investigators. It seems to me that 

 certain conditions, which are necessary to 

 make a good atmosphere, are, as yet, lack- 

 ing in many institutions. Probably the 

 most serious defect in our anatomical de- 

 partments is due to the appointment of 

 men in active medical practise to the chairs 

 of anatomy. Unlike professional anat- 

 omists, they rarely have the time to devote 

 to teaching students, nor the requisite train- 

 ing to enable them to develop the depart- 

 ment properly, and anatomy necessarily 

 suifers. However, I regard it as fortunate 

 that circumstances have placed us in a 

 position from which there is no retreat. 

 To carry on the campaign, now so well 

 started, we must have many more pro- 

 ductive anatomists. In order to obtain 

 them and to make the efforts of our present 

 investigators more effective, we must use 

 all our influence to bring the greatest op- 

 portunities and the best men together. A 

 highly cultured community naturally de- 

 sires the ablest man. My earnest hope is 

 that those in authority in various communi- 

 ties will recognize that our idea of the scope 

 of anatomy is correct, and that they will 

 seek productive anatomists, when vacancies 

 occur, so that our grand science may be 

 raised to the level it has always held in 

 Europe. Franklin P. Mall 



THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



SOME PHASES OF PREHISTORIC 



ARCHEOLOGY ' 



The American field for anthropological 

 research is so wide and so fertile that it 

 not only monopolizes the attention of spe- 

 cialists at home, but also attracts to our 

 shores numerous foreign investigators. For 

 attestation of this fact, one has but to cite 



' Address of the vice-president and chairman of 

 Section H — Anthropology — at the New York 

 meeting of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science. 



the fourteenth International Congress of 

 Americanists held in the city of Quebec 

 last September. The same congress had 

 convened in the new world twice before, 

 once in New York City and once in the 

 City of Mexico, the remaining sessions 

 having been held in various European 

 cities. 



When foreign savants take such a deep 

 interest in our own problems it is fitting 

 that we should reciprocate by at least an 

 occasional survey of the foreign field. In 

 looking over the list of vice-presidential 

 addresses read before this section, I find 

 that two such surveys have already been 

 made.^ The address of Professor E. S. 

 Morse, entitled 'Man in the Tertiaries,' 

 was a powerful argument in favor of the 

 existence of man's ancestors in Tertiary 

 times. Fifteen years later Dr. Thomas 

 Wilson chose for his subject, 'The Begin- 

 nings of Prehistoric Anthropology.'^ He 

 not only had something to say about Ter- 

 tiary man, but also covered the paleolithic 

 and neolithic periods. In the more than 

 seven years that have elapsed since Dr. 

 Wilson's address was read, much progress 

 has been made in the prehistoric archeology 

 of Europe. This is especially true con- 

 cerning our knowledge of the eolithic ques- 

 tion and of paleolithic art in so far as it 

 has to do with engravings and frescoes on 

 certain cavern walls. In fact, eoliths and 

 paleolithic mural decorations were not 

 even mentioned by Dr. Wilson. He did 

 refer, however, to Harrison's discoveries 

 of 'paleoliths' on the Chalk Plateau of 

 Kent, but confused these with the well- 

 known river-drift implements. 



THE EOLITHIC PERIOD 



When Thomsen published his relative 

 chronology for prehistoric times in 1836, 



''Vice-presidential address, Proc. A. A. A. S., 

 1884, XXXIIL, 579. 



^Vice-presidential address, Proc. A. A. A. S., 

 1899, XL VIII., 309. 



