12 



ANNUAL MEETING. 



The Chairman. — Ladies and gentlemen, it is my duty now — and 

 a very pleasant duty it is — to call on Colonel Mackinlay to offer to 

 the lecturer our thanks, as I know you will all desire, for his 

 extremely interesting and charming lecture in which he has taken 

 us, in this short time, through a period of some 8,000 years. I will 

 not say anything on the subject, but will call on Colonel Mackinlay 

 to do so. 



Lieutenant-Colonel Mackinlay. — It is my pleasant duty to 

 propose the' following resolution, that " the best thanks of the 

 Institute be offered to Professor Flinders Petrie and to those who 

 have read papers during the session." You have already heard of 

 the papers that have been read, and I think I may justly say they 

 have been splendidly crowned by the lecture we have just heard. 

 We have been told it is only during the last ten years that this 

 subject has been investigated, and we have had the pleasure of 

 hearing some of the very oldest history from one of the foremost 

 leaders of this branch of research. I have, therefore, much pleasure 

 in moving this resolution, which I am sure we shall pass with the 

 greatest unanimity. 



Dr. Theophilus Pinches, on rising to second the resolution, said : 

 It is needless for me to say that I have very great pleasure in 

 seconding the vote of thanks which Lieutenant-Colonel Mackinlay 

 has proposed. As one who knows something of the subject, I must 

 say that I found this lecture most interesting and instructive, and 

 whilst listening to it and to all the wealth of information it brings, 

 I cannot help thinking that the subject which I represent 

 (Assyriology), with all its wealth of inscriptions, cannot furnish, by 

 any means, the same amount of information, and, naturally, one 

 looks forward and asks oneself whether Assyria and Babylon will 

 ever be so. fruitful. The climate, undoubtedly, was against the 

 preservation of objects in Babylonia, but still it is possible that 

 something may be found. These lessons that we get from such 

 simple things as household utensils and pots — it is quite a revelation 

 when one sees them depicted in succession of time on the screen ; 

 and when speaking of these simple things to which Professor Petrie 

 has referred us, I certainly think of all the theories which have been 

 brought forward, that concerning the origin of the alphabet is the 

 most promising. We do not know, it is true, the value of these old 

 marks which he has thrown on the screen ; but I fully expect that 



