﻿Haast. — Moas and Moa Ilimters. 67 



because it is self-evident that many causes must combine advantageously to 

 advance a nation, biit it is one amongst others of which, I can truly say, that 

 it has produced good results in other countries ; and I am not going too far in 

 stating that the advantages gained just now by one great nation over another, 

 to the utter astonishment of the whole civilized world, have, in many respects, 

 only been obtained by the daily improving system, of which scientific and 

 technical teaching forms a portion, through which all classes of the German 

 Empire have become more highly educated, whilst the French nation has 

 remained comparatively stationary. 



I should like to dwell somewhat longer upon this very important subject 

 did I not fear I should weary you with it. I shall therefore devote the space 

 of time allotted to me to some other subjects which have for a considerable 

 number of years occvipied my attention. 



When a French savant in Amiens, Boucher de Perthes, announced to the 

 world in 1847 that he had discovered, in the gravels of the valley of the 

 Somme, rude flint implements, together with the bones of the mammoth, 

 woolly rhinoceros, lion, cave bear, etc., an incredulous smile, if not more, 

 passed over the faces of scientific men, geologists as well as archaeologists. 

 Both considered it a settled point, that the huge 'pachydermata which at one 

 time inhabited the European continent, were so long extinct, and the human 

 race of such recent origin, that it was impossible they could be contem- 

 poraneous. However, further researches in almost every European country 

 have proved beyond a doubt that the French savant was right, and that these 

 gigantic animals, although having been extinct for such a length of time that 

 we have no means of calculating it even approximately, were nevertheless 

 hunted and used as food by man, and were thiis connected with the present 

 age, showing conclusively that Europe has been much longer inhabited by the 

 human race than Avas formerly suj^posed or admitted. If we turn now to the 

 southern hemisphere, and especially to New Zealand, we have to overcome 

 the opposite difficulty, it having been generally asserted that the extinct 

 gigantic birds formerly inhabiting these islands, and doubtless representing the 

 huge j)achyderTinata and other gigantic forms of the same geological period in 

 the northern hemisphere, have only recently become extinct, that there 

 were no original inhabitants in these islands, and that the different 

 species of Dinornis only became extinct by the exertions of a race of new 

 comers, who, not many hundred years ago, landed as immigrants on the coast 

 of New Zealand. With your permission, I shall devote the next portion of 

 my address to these interesting questions, which are so full of suggestive 

 matter. 



The pre-historic people in Europe have been divided into four great 

 divisions, according to the nature of the tools they employed : — 1st. To the 



