98 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



continued to be, the study of Natural History and 

 Antiquities in the Border district. Possibly the shorten- 

 ing of our title for common use, so as to drop the word 

 "antiquities," may, at times, have been misleading to 

 those at least wlio are not members of the Club. Pos- 

 sibly some of us, even within our own circle, may have 

 now and then felt that a diversity of aim was caused 

 or implied by this combination of studies — Natural 

 History on the one side, Antiquities on the other. The 

 subjects treated in past Presidential addresses, and in 

 the Club's records, do certainly cover a wide ground, 

 and present a diverse array. And yet our Society 

 continues a harmonious body, individuals with widely 

 different tastes and occupations working together in the 

 most friendly way. If I do not now attempt what is, 

 indeed, beyond my powers, a solid disquisition on some 

 one branch of the many sciences which our Club 

 embraces, but if I rather venture to make a few 

 remarks of a general nature, in an informal way, before 

 submitting to you a few notes on Ewart and its neigh- 

 bourhood, I hope to meet with your kindly tolerance. 

 This very word " antiquities " suggests several ques- 

 tions. How many years, what lapse of 

 'Antiquities' time, make antiquity ? In the answer, it 

 defined. seems to me, lies the justification of this 



Club. What has Natural History, that is 

 Natural Science, to do with antiquit}^ ? Are they 

 antagonistic, irreconcilable ? Are we a Scientific Society? 

 Does Science harden and brutalize ? Is there a deep- 

 lying truth and meaning in the poet's lament that 

 " science " has robbed us of the Triton and his conch, 

 to give us foraminifera ? or in Froude the historian's 

 despondent cry, that since the great firmly established 

 world, the mother-earth, on which men live, has been 

 shown by astronomers to be but an insignificant ball 

 spinning along in the immense profundity of space, 

 man has been robbed of his very foothold, and of all 



