IXAUGUEAL ADDRESS. 
21 
tlie homes of many new highlanders. You will he impressed 
M’ith the solemnity and almost awe of stillness away from the 
haunts of man, feelings of human insignificance arising within 
scenes of nature so incomparably grand ; there man is drawing 
nearer in his thoughts to the Divine Power ruling all. ’ 
Science nowhere can stand still ! Linguistic science is not 
foreign to this Association. Thu.s, then, time-hallowed expressions, 
though some of them may have come as a glossarian inheritage 
even from Pythagorean antiquity, and may have continued of 
daily frequency, will have to give way to wordings in consonance 
with progressive discoveries. Organography, even in instances of 
woi’ds, to which has been clung with tenacity since the Plinian 
age, will have yet to undergo some changes for the sake of greater 
accuracy in definiteness and more clearness in etymology. Com- 
matation in more than one of current languages could be brought 
better into accord with oscillations of thought. The hyphen 
might for fuller perspicuity be more drawn into use, and particu- 
larly so in organic chemistry, which furni.shes, even at the late.st of 
dates, words so unwieldy in reading, and so unpronounceable in 
length, for its complex-compositions, that f>ne single word may be 
cninposed in unbroken array of as many as forty-five letter.s, not 
unlike the e.xtensivenessof constructk)n in some Oriejital languages ; 
while contrarily, abbreviations to such an extent as “fSalol” for 
the new therapeutic chemical, “Salicylate of Phenol,” appear 
equally depj'ecable. Speaking of ancient languages, it might 
jiassingly here be noted, from researches of Pnjfessor Savce, of 
' fxford, in most recent days, that a brisk literary intercourse 
existed in cuneate lettering betweeji .all the countries fnmi the 
Xile to the Euphrates fluring the fifteenth century before the 
Cliristian era. This was shown by unearthing tlie ruins f)f the 
> esidence-town of Amenophis the Fourth. Contrast with this the 
still existing stone-age of the Australian Nomades ! We here 
c.annot hope, to add much to what has been gathered already of 
the languages of the Australian aborigines for sfime fuither 
insight into the onward-march <jf the human races and the 
history of their progress ; but such chances, as may still exist, 
should not be lost for constructing further vocabularies, ere the 
remnants <^f the last tribes are passing away, or alfandon their 
pristine languages, or forget their lore ; what can still be secured 
w ill be all the more valuable, because it will — at best — be so scanty. 
Studies of this kiiul will become imu’e significant, since a Vic- 
torian divine, as a mi.ssionary in the Xew Hebrifles, traces 
the language there pai-tly to Semitic origin. Indeed, linguistic 
IV, search assumes .also here now such magnitude, that it might he 
recommendable to constitute hereafter a division for “ science of 
languages ” in the section for literature witliin this Association. 
The moment seems an apt one, to pay .some homage at this spot 
also to the Iiearers of the gfispel, who, in their inostentatious yet 
