Report on Philology, etc. 



187 



the modern Australians in their anatomy, their language, 

 and their arts and weapons, we must regard the Austra- 

 lians of to-day as the specimens of living men of which 

 these extinct races are the fossil specimens, and we should 

 expect to find now living in Australia the type of prim- 

 eval man. What discoveries may await us on the full ex- 

 ploration of Africa, it is as yet premature to conjecture. 

 The almost incredible accounts received from Dr. Living- 

 stone relate merely to fluviatic explorations, and touch but 

 slightly on the characteristics of the inhabitants of regions 

 visited by him. 



The interest with which these studies are now regarded 

 is evident from the number of new books fresh from the 

 press, among which may be mentioned Evans's Stone 

 Implements of Great Britain, Dr. L. Buechner's Man in 

 the Past, Present and Future, translated from the Ger- 

 man by Dallas, and a whimsical work entitled The Mar- 

 tyrdom of Man, by Winwood Reade. Both the latter are 

 written in a thoroughly sceptical tone, and are bitterly 

 opposed to Christianity. Dr. Buechner is lecturing in 

 this country this season. 



The search for ancient monuments and relics of primeval 

 man is also vigorously prosecuted, and with much success. 

 Implements and fossil remains in abundance reward the 

 diligence of collectors. A recent newspaper account repre- 

 sents a mound on the line of the Northern Pacific railroad 

 to coutain evidences of a race of men different from any pre- 

 viously known to have existed in this country. Whether 

 this will prove to be a discovery of any value cannot be 

 determined, however, without fuller information than I 

 have yet been able to obtain. 



The monuments of comparatively recent times, that is 

 to say of the date of earlier civilization, are also rapidly 

 accumulating. Such histories as Mommsen's Rome and 

 Curtius's Greece, for instance, could not have been written 

 till very lately ; and in the Levant the discovery of the 



