12:2 



The Twenty-first General Meeting. 



accomplished by the zeal, however ardent, of a few ; but must be 

 the result of the combined efforts of many ; so true and so applicable 

 to its own pursuits is the Society's motto, emblazoned, as you will 

 see it, by amateur hands, as you enter the Museum : — 



' Multorum manibus, grande levatur onus.' " 



Mr. E. P. Bouvebie said he had been requested to move the 

 adoption of the Report, which he did with very great pleasure. 

 He did not however consider that he was worthy of so distinguished 

 a position or of calling' attention to the satisfactory points to which it 

 referred. The only claim he could advance to be considered an 

 archaeologist was founded on the fact of his being a member of this 

 Society. He had been hoping* that he would have been accompanied 

 to-day by a friend whose name was almost of world-wide celebrity 

 — he meant Sir John Lubbock — who had promised to come with 

 him to this meeting, but unfortunately he found he had a previous 

 engagement which prevented him doing so. Sir John was a 

 gentleman eminently qualified to have addressed them with advantage 

 and instruction, and was well known for his zeal in the pursuit of 

 archaeological subjects. He was glad to say Sir John had become a 

 Wiltshire proprietor,as manypresent might be aware, and had acquired 

 a portion of Avebury, and had expressed an ardent wish to preserve 

 those ancient monuments there which some seemed anxious to destroy. 

 He remembered quite well while travelling across this county, from 

 north to south, some 40 or 45 years ago, seeing a party of men breaking 

 up the grand old stones atAvebury, for the purpose of mending the roads. 

 Now let them hope that partly owing to the exertions and interposition 

 of such Societies as this, that spirit was passing away, and that there 

 was a desire to maintain those mysterious monuments which existed 

 as interesting links between us and our forefathers. We were a 

 nation having a great past, and it was natural we should desire to 

 see what that past had been, and it was only by investigating these 

 matters in a scientific mode that a knowledge of that past could be 

 obtained. We knew we were a great people now, and that our name 

 and our language were known all over the world — perhaps more 

 known than those of any other nation that had previously existed — but 



