The Opening Meeting. 



123 



we are what we are, because we have been made so by our forefathers, 

 and therefore it was most natural that we should endeavour to 

 ascertain what sort of people our forefathers were, what they did, how 

 they lived and acted, and what were their characteristics and history ; 

 and the unwritten records in which Wiltshire so greatly abounded were 

 to a very great extent the means by which we might arrive at that 

 knowledge. It would be idle for anyone like himself who was not 

 familiar with archaeological matters, to attempt to talk about them, 

 but still as an Englishman and as a Wiltshireman it was impossible 

 not to feel an interest in them. There were in this county monu- 

 ments that carried them back to the earliest races known to exist in 

 this land, and the grand old stones which stood on the downs of 

 Wiltshire presented a problem still to be solved. Coming clown to 

 more recent times, Mr. Bouverie spoke of some of the noble structures 

 that adorn this county. As a proof of the great wealth and 

 population which once distinguished Wiltshire, the speaker men- 

 tioned that there were more mills specified in Domesday Book as 

 existing in Wiltshire than in any other county in England. That 

 gave indirect evidence of the superior wealth and industry that 

 characterised Wiltshire in former times. The county was not pos- 

 sessed of the great source of wealth of modern time, as it did not 

 abound with coal, which attracts population and wealth ; but they 

 had memorials and proofs of the wealth and prosperity which 

 distinguished the district in bygone centuries, and they ought to 

 value and cherish them. Mr. Bouverie referred to the success which 

 had marked the operations of the Society, and attributed a large 

 share of that success to the ability and exertions of Canon Jackson 

 who was one of the originators of the institution. One of the 

 things which must strike thinking minds in looking back into the 

 dim past was the amazing contrast between the manners and customs 

 of the times in which we live and those of remote periods. It had 

 often been said that in these days " The poor were poorer, and the rich 

 were richer than in past times," but one part of that statement was 

 certainly untrue. No doubt there was now a vast accumulation of 

 wealth, but he fully believed that if we had more perfect means of 

 comparing the position of the people now classed as poor, with that 



