282 
mittee, should be no longer among us. Al- 
though this report is said to be final, it is 
to be hoped that the committee may be 
able to indicate lines upon which future 
work in the direction of ethnological and 
archeological research may be profitably 
carried on in this part of Her Majesty’s 
dominions. 
It is, however, lamentable to notice how 
little is being or has been officially done 
towards preserving a full record of the 
habits, beliefs, arts, myths, languages and 
physical characteristics of the countless 
other tribes and nations more or less 
uncivilized which are comprised within 
the limits of the British Empire. At the 
meeting of this Association held last year 
at Liverpool it was resolved, by the General 
Committee “ that it is of urgent importance 
to press upon the government the necessity 
of establishing a Bureau of Ethnology for 
Greater Britain, which, by collecting infor- 
mation with regard to the native races 
within and on the borders of the Empire, 
will prove of immense value to science 
and to the government itself.” It has 
been suggested that such a bureau might, 
with the greatest advantage and with the 
least outlay and permanent expense, be 
connected either with the British Mu- 
seum or with the Imperial Institute, and 
the project has already been submitted 
for the consideration of the trustees of 
the former establishment. 
The existence of an almost unrivalled 
ethnological collection in the Museum, and 
the presence there of officers already well 
versed in ethnological research, seem to 
afford an argument in favor of the pro- 
posed bureau being connected with it. On 
the other hand, the Imperial Institute was 
founded with an especial view to its being 
a center around which every interest con- 
nected with the dependencies of the Em- 
pire might gather for information and sup- 
port. The establishment, within the last 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vox. VI. No. 138, 
twelve months of a scientific department 
within the Institute, with well-appointed 
laboratories and a highly trained staff, 
shows how ready are those concerned in 
its management to undertake any duties 
that may conduce to the welfare of the 
outlying parts of the British Empire; a 
fact of which I believe that Canada is 
fully aware. The Institute is, therefore, 
likely to develop, so far as its scientific 
department is concerned, into a bureau of 
advice in all matters scientific and techni- 
cal, and certainly a Bureau of Hthnology, 
such as that suggested, would not be out of 
place within its walls. 
Wherever such an institution is to be es- 
tablished, the question of its existence must, 
of necessity, rest with Her Majesty’s goy- 
ernment and treasury, inasmuch as without 
funds, however moderate, the undertaking 
cannot be carried on. I trust that in con- 
sidering the question it will always be borne 
in mind that in the relations between civil- 
ized and uncivilized nations and races it is 
of the first importance that the prejudices, 
and especially the religious or semi-religious 
and caste prejudices, of the latter should 
be thoroughly well known to the former. If 
but a single ‘little war’ could be avoided 
in consequence of the knowledge acquired 
and stored up by the Bureau of Ethnology 
preventing such a misunderstanding as 
might culminate in warfare, the cost of such 
an institution would quickly be saved. 
I fear that it willbe thought that I have 
dwelt too long on primeval man and his 
modern representatives, and that I should 
have taken this opportunity to discuss some 
more general subject, such as the advances 
made in the various departments of science 
since last this Association met in Canada. 
Such a subject would, no doubt, have afford- 
ed an infinity of interesting topics on which 
to dilate. Spectrum analysis, the origin 
and nature of celestial bodies, photography, 
the connection between heat, light and elec- 
