﻿Address. 425 



be carried on. I trust that in considering the question it 

 will always be borne in mind that in the relations 

 between civilised and uncivilised 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 will be thought that I have dwelt 

 too long on primaeval 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 Associa- 

 tion met in Canada. Such a subject would no doubt 

 have afforded 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 electricity, the practical applications of the 

 latter, terrestrial magnetism, the liquefaction and solidifi- 

 cation of gases, the behavior of elements and compounds 

 under the influence of extreme cold, the nature and 

 uses of the Rontgen rays, the advances in bacteriology 

 and in prophylactic medicine, might all have been passed 

 under review, and to many of my audience would have 

 seemed to possess greater claims to attention than the 

 subject that I have chosen. 



It must, however, be borne in mind that most, if 

 not indeed all, of these topics will be discussed by more 

 competent authorities in the various Sections of the 

 Association by means of the Presidential addresses or 

 otherwise. Nor must it be forgotten that I occupy 

 this position as a . representative of Archaeology, and am 

 therefore justified in bringing before you a subject in 



