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allude. He says that “ the changes which occur in every organic structure 
as years roll on, are to be considered normal.” How few of us can count 
among our own friends those who have lived during four generations ? What 
a valuable addition it would be to our stock of knowledge if a body of 
experts would tell us the structures which have most conduced to longevity, 
and that have given an existence of four-score years. If we were to take 
the “ seventies/' — the parrot, for instance, — zoologists might tell us many 
interesting details. Again, in the course of my travels I have never seen a 
bald head among the South Sea Islanders. They are every day in the salt 
water, and their hair gets a regular coating of the customary cocoa-nut oil. 
Then, in Nova Scotia and the Gulf of California, if you see a grey-headed 
Indian he must be very old indeed ; while in the Negro you not only 
observe very beautiful teeth, but you also say there is plenty of room for 
them. As to the Tierra del Fuegians, they are all alike, and all evidently 
belong to the same race ; and what a splendid figure the Negro possesses, in 
spite of the peculiarities of his physical formation ! Is that peculiar crisp and 
curled condition of the hair, which we admire so much when seen in the Euro- 
pean race, associated with the general formation of the Negro type ? Is it 
the bone structure of the Negro that is the cause of, or a contributor to it ? 
In considering the peculiar circumstances that have conduced to longevity, 
there is a wide field for observation among the inhabitants of the new 
world, the hill tribes, and the New Zealanders ; but still I think it will 
be the microscope and chemical analysis that will have to solve the mystery. 
Surgeon- General Gordon, C.B. — I have not many remarks to offer, and 
would preface what I have to say by stating that the general plan of my paper 
has relation to the point I have taken up, namely, that the language in which 
science is incorporated varies from peiiod to period according to the peculiar 
turn of popular thought. In this, as far as the limits to which my paper 
was necessarily confined would admit, I have tried to give, as it were, the 
antidote — showing by quotations from recognised authorities those things 
which, to my mind, were calculated to neutralise those which I had 
previously cited. Hence it is that some remarks to which reference has 
been made as if they were mine, are not in reality mine, as will be seen by 
reference to the notes at the foot of many of the pages. I certainly have 
drawn certain deductions from a comparison of the different and opposing 
statements which seemed to me to be legitimately deducible from them, 
but I do not know that I have done anything more. An allusion has 
been made by one of the speakers to the benefits which man 
has conferred on the inferior animals. There can be no doubt that man has 
conferred very great benefits on the lower animals ; but, on the other hand, 
the lower animals have conferred very great benefits on him ; therefore, it 
seems to me, they are quits as far as that goes. But the allusion to which 
I specially refer was to a quotation given by me from a well-known French 
paper, the Revue des Deux Mondes : — “ Le plus je connais des hommes, le 
plus j’aime le chien.” My object in introducing that was to commend it to the 
notice of those who hold the doctrine to which I have referred, namely, those 
