president’s address. 
65 
tion of the Society has not confined itself to the natural 
sciences alone, but has extended its activities into the domain 
of history and literature. 
In the former there is a large home field where the Society 
could do useful work, and I would suggest the advant- 
age of effecting a combination with the Historical Society, 
by inviting this Society to become an affiliated branch, 
or otherwise to unite the work of the two societies. Our 
Society already has in its museum considerable material of 
the French and early English periods, as well as an excellent 
collection showing the arts and methods of life of the abori- 
gines, the so-called “Indians.” Our building would also be 
• the natural home of those who are pursuing investigations 
into the early history of the province. 
As our museum contains a very large collection of objects 
showing the early condition of man in this country (where 
however we have no traces of the earlier remains of Palaeo- 
lithic man, so well shown in the cave deposits and river- 
gravels of Europe), I have thought it well to say a few 
words about late discoveries in the old world in relation to 
this subject. 
Not the least notable in the additions to our knowledge 
in the past two decades are those that relate to primeval 
man. We had known that man’s history in Europe went 
back to the Pleistocine or Glacial time, but there was no 
assured knowledge that would tell us of an earlier time when 
man contended for his existence and food with animals 
now extinct. Although the remains of man had been found 
in a cave in England over-run with boulder clay of the 
Glacial time, its significance did not seem to be appreciated 
We had indeed learned that there had been a time when 
man in Europe fashioned tools and weapons of bronze, 
which was preceded by a time when he made tools and 
weapons of ground and polished stone. It was also ascer- 
tained that the men of the bronze age apparently were fire 
worshippers and burned their dead. This practice of crema- 
tion left no skeletal remains. 
