taking into account the most remarkable facts in his nature—the facts of civilization, arts, government, speech, his traditions, his internal wants, his intellectual, moral, and religious constitution. If we will attempt such a retrospect, we must look at all these things as evidence of the origin and end of man's being; and when we do thus comprehend in one view the whole of the argument, it is impossible for us to arrive at an origin homogeneous with the present order of things. On this point the geologist may therefore be well content to close the volume of the earth's physical history, and open that divine record which has for its subject the moral and religious nature of man."[1]
I cannot conclude this imperfect attempt to assist the Archæologist in determining the age and mode of formation of the rocks and strata in which the remains of man and his works may be found imbedded, without adverting to the deeply-regretted absence of a highly-gifted and distinguished member of this Institution,[2] whose profound geological and archæological knowledge, and impressive eloquence, would have thrown around the subjects that have been submitted to your consideration, an interest and importance I have vainly essayed to impart. In breathing a fervent prayer that one so beloved for the kindness of his heart, and his generous bearing towards every cultivator of science, and so highly respected for his eminent abilities and acquirements, may be speedily restored to his friends, and to the sciences his labours have so greatly advanced, I feel assured that I am expressing the earnest wish of every member of the Archæological Institute.[3]
- ↑ Anniversary Address to the Geological Society of London.
- ↑ The Dean of Westminster, The Very Rev. Dr. Buckland.
- ↑ I subjoin the following note, as corroborating the views expressed in the text; it is from an interesting paper by D. Wilson, Esq., entitled, "Inquiry into the Evidence of the existence of Primitive Races in Scotland prior to the Celtic;" communicated to the Ethnological section of the British Association, at Edinburgh, August, 1850:—"In the museum of the University of Edinburgh, there are the remains of a fossil whale, that were dug up in the Blair Drummond Moss, at a distance of seven miles above Stirling Bridge, and fully twenty miles from the nearest point of the river Forth, where by any possibility a whale could now be stranded; yet along with these relics was found a rude harpoon of deer's horn, proving that the fossil whale pertains to the historic era, and pointing to a period more recent than the first colonization of the British Isles. In the same moss other fossil whales have been found; two of them accompanied with similar indications of the primitive arts of the aborigines. Other discoveries of a like nature justify the conclusion, that at a period nearly as remote as historic chronology will permit us to assume, there must have been a human population spread over the British Isles. Their rude canoes, for the most part formed out of an oaken trunk, have been found in various parts of the country many feet below the accumulated alluvium,
