263 



information, if the examination be but carefully and scientifically 

 prosecuted. The physical features of a country, moreover, the 

 names of our hills and mountains, of our streams, rivers, and 

 lakes, become valuable coadjutors in the enquiry, as they often 

 take us back to the days and the migrations into Britain of our 

 pre-historic forefathers, that is, to the earlier and later Celtic or 

 pre-Roman times.*' 



As many of us have found pleasure and advantage in such in- 

 vestigations, and as many more of our members will possess 

 similar opportunities, I may be allowed to suggest here that they 

 might thus do efficient service to science, and obtain for them- 

 selves in archaeological and philological pursuits much profitable 

 and agreeable recreation. The acquisition of facts, as in all 

 sciences, not the construction of theories merely, is the great 

 desideratum. The co-operation of many competent observers 

 has already advanced our knowledge of the pre-Eoman age in 

 Northern England, and the forthcoming exhaustive work of the 

 Rev. ¥m. Greenwell, F.S.A., who is our best authority on the 

 subject, will throw much light on our pre-historic period, just 

 as the Rev. Dr. Bruce has already done upon the Roman age. 



Nor do I think that however far in the remote past we may 

 push back the origines of our most ancient forefathers on sure 

 and undoubted evidence, we shall find ourselves in necessary 

 conflict with revealed Truth. To concede a greater antiquity 

 to the existence of our race on the earth does not militate 

 against any of the doctrines of Scripture, as the Duke of Argyle 

 has shown. The poet Cowper, with most of his contemporaries, 

 believed that the exact duration of the world was expressly re- 

 vealed in the Book of Genesis. There is not one word in the 

 Bible to prove this ; yet he censures the geologists who 



" Drill and bore 



The solid earth, and from the strata there 



Extract a register, by which we learn 



That He who made it, and reveaVd its date 



To Moses, was mistaken in its age." 

 But, on the other hand, the reverent interrogation of Nature, 



* The word "Lough" for instance, proves a Gadhelic migration from Holy Island to 

 the Solway, through the Isle of Man to Ireland. 



