President's Address. 



329 



Malay, &c), each in its own proper head-quarter, would still 

 remain a problem of antecedent date, requiring similar 

 methods of research, and similar processes of solution. In 

 this way, and on the fair presumption of the coloured and 

 inferior being the older varieties, the antiquity of man as a 

 species mounts still higher and higher, and the course of 

 discovery may yet compel us — nay, will almost to a certainty 

 compel us — to assign to him an origin coeval with the very 

 dawn of what we are in the habit of regarding as the Qua- 

 ternary system, if not, indeed, with the close of the later 

 Tertiaries, and just when the more gigantic fauna of that 

 epoch was passing away from the warmer zones of Asia, 

 Africa, and America. 



A vote of thanks, moved by Mr William Turner, M.B., 

 was given to Mr Page for his learned, suggestive, and 

 interesting Address, and for his valuable services as Presi- 

 dent of the Society. 



The Eev. James Brodie, of Monimail, concurred in the 

 vote of thanks now passed, he considered the address of his 

 old acquaintance, Mr David Page, as a very able one, and 

 admired the clear and temperate manner in which he had ex- 

 pressed himself. At the same time, he must say he dissented 

 altogether from the conclusion to which he had arrived. 



He entered on the consideration of this question free 

 from air bias. He believed the Bible to be unquestion- 

 ably the Word of God, but he regarded the record in Genesis 

 as having reference only to creatures at present existing. The 

 covering of the earth with " darkness and the deep" implied 

 a deluge altogether anomalous and miraculous. The creation 

 which followed was in a great measure a reconstruction of 

 beings formerly existing. In short, there was nothing in 

 Scripture to prevent him believing that races of men had 

 inhabited the earth previous to the creation of Adam ; but 

 he had never seen any facts adduced that afforded the 

 slightest proof of the existence of pre-Adamite man. 



He objected to Mr Page's conclusions on grounds purely 



vol. in. 2 u 



