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The Twenty -first General Meeting. 



what I have referred to last — the names of plants and trees, and 

 these prove, what has been ascertained also by other evidence, that 

 the tribes which in early times entered Europe and descended upon 

 Britain, and the eastern races which eventually in their progress 

 broke up the Roman Empire, were not a set of savages or mere 

 pirates and warriors, as has been represented, but were colonists, 

 who, rude as they may have been in dress and manners, were, in all 

 essential points, already a civilized people ; and by the names of 

 plants, as used by them, and which are in use at the present day, 

 we discern that these tribes came from their homes with a knowledge 

 of letters, and the useful metals, with nearly all the domestic 

 animals ; that they cultivated oats, barley, wheat, rye and beans, 

 built houses of timber and thatched them, and, what is more im- 

 portant, as shewing that their pasture and arable land was intermixed 

 and acknowledged as private property, they hedged their fields and 

 fenced their gardens, so that, although our ancestors may have been 

 indebted to the provincials of the Roman Empire for their fruit trees 

 and some other luxuries, for a knowledge of the fine arts and the 

 Latin literature, and a debased Christianity; the more essential 

 acquirements upon which their prosperity and progress as a nation 

 depended, were already in their possession. Bush, hawthorn, oats, 

 wheat, and. a host of others, are unquestionably native names and 

 not of Latin or Celtic origin. It is the study of these things which 

 gives value to history. The vast majority of historians have filled 

 their works with the most trifling details — of personal anecdotes of 

 kings and courts, and long accounts of battles and seiges — whilst 

 they have altogether neglected the important facts necessary to the 

 study of the history of man, and which archaeologists are now en- 

 deavouring to supply by a determined and protracted industry ; they 

 had both to be masons and architects, and not only trace the scheme 

 of the edifice, but also the excavation of the quarry. Many of the 

 old customs and reliques perpetuate history, and charitable gifts and 

 foundations show the local wants of a people and district, from which 

 you can not only build up theories but demonstrate facts. Archaeol- 

 ogists, like naturalists, are frequently able to decide on the principle 

 of harmony, and from single stones in a building to determine the 



