Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/122

110 undertaking can not be carried on. I trust that in considering the question it will always be borne in mind that in the relations between civilized and uncivilized nations and races it is of the first importance that the prejudices, and especially the religious or semi-religious and caste prejudices of the latter should be thoroughly well known to the former. If but a single "little war" could be avoided in consequence of the knowledge acquired and stored up by the Bureau of Ethnology preventing such a misunderstanding as might culminate in warfare, the cost of such an institution would quickly be saved.

I fear that it will be thought that I have dwelt too long on primeval man and his modern representatives, and that I should have taken this opportunity to discuss some more general subject, such as the advances made in the various departments of science since last this association met in Canada. Such a subject would no doubt have afforded an infinity of interesting topics on which to dilate. Spectrum analysis, the origin and nature of celestial bodies, photography, the connection between heat, light, and electricity, the practical applications of the latter, terrestrial magnetism, the liquefaction and solidification of gases, the behavior of elements and compounds under the influence of extreme cold, the nature and uses of the Röntgen rays, the advances in bacteriology and in prophylactic medicine, might all have been passed under review, and to many of my audience would have seemed to possess greater claims to attention than the subject that I have chosen. It must, however, be borne in mind that most, if not indeed all, of these topics will be discussed by more competent authorities in the various sections of the association by means of the presidential addresses or otherwise. Nor must it be forgotten that I occupy this position as a representative of archæology, and am therefore justified in bringing before you a subject in which every member of every race of mankind ought to be interested—the antiquity of the human family and the scenes of its infancy.

Others will direct our thoughts in other directions, but the further we proceed the more clearly shall we realize the connection and interdependence of all departments of science. Year after year, as meetings of this association take place, we may also foresee that "many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased." Year after year advances will be made in science and in reading that Book of Nature that lies ever open before our eyes; successive stones will be brought for building up that temple of knowledge of which our fathers and we have labored to lay the foundations. May we not well exclaim with old Robert Recorde: "Oh woorthy temple of Goddes magnificence: Oh throne of glorye and seate of