In the early autumn of 1889, the writer of this paper had the good fortune to be present at the Newcastle meeting of the British Association. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, standing at the very gateway of Scotland and looking out from the Tyne upon the great North Sea, is a famous old city in English history, that lay directly in the path of conquest and migration and was literally cradled in war, alternately rocked by Scandinavian or Dane, Saxon or Norman, Englishman or Scot. To-day it is big, prosperous, and progressive; even in the midst of peace perpetually sounding the note of preparation for war. True to its oldest and best traditions it is staunchly loyal to the Crown, proudly proclaiming its fealty on every coast, from the mouths of mighty guns cast in its own Cyclopean shops. From the days of the Scandinavian sea-rover through centuries of ruthless conflict she has stood out stoutly against the enemies of England, just as to-day her long sea-front of solid wall resists the encroachments of the Northern sea.

Here the shipbuilder is ceaselessly busy, constructing in his immense yards the great modern ship with its heart of fire and frame of steel. In any large yards the whole scheme of construction in all its branches may be seen at a glance, from the laying of the keel to the launching of the ship. The best work in modern engineering can be seen on the Tyne; and this is not surprising when we remember that upon the banks of this river the Locomotive was born, giving to this aggressive contemporary people a command of the earth as complete as their immemorial mastery of the sea. So enormous is the demand for fuel in the shipyards of the North-east Coast that it will take but a few centuries of work in these busy shops to exhaust the supply. The old proverb has lost its point. The most careless or unobservant tourist may see the steam-drawn trains "carrying their coals" to Newcastle, now, at all hours.

Nor does the Northern farmer sit with idle hands. All industries rest upon him. The farms are small, but the joint product is large. Thousands of farm laborers in Northumberland have each their "three acres and a cow." The Northern cattle-market in Newcastle would have filled the Highland caterans with delight. The weekly supply of cattle exceeds two thousand; the number of sheep is not less than twenty thousand. This was nearly twenty years ago. What must it be now? But even thus, how it speaks for the varied gifts and exhaustless vigor and vitality of this old Northumbrian race! Their rage for "river improvement" carries a lesson for men of their blood elsewhere. Between 1860 and 1889 the material dredged from the bed of the river Tyne amounted to more than eighty millions of tons. "Now,"—it was said at the Newcastle meeting—"there are more vessels entering and leaving this port than any other in the world." Among the outgoing vessels at that time was a gallant Norwegian barque which bore the name of "Longfellow." A few years before—a score, perhaps—the writer had seen upon a famous track in Kentucky a racer of great note who bore the same illustrious name—almost a contemporaneous compliment from widely separate branches of the same race. But what more enduring than the singer's own verse?—

A fit place of meeting—this old gateway of the North—for a select body of England's brilliant, busy, clear-headed and practical savants, and especially for that marvelously fruitful mid-century "section" which here first received supreme scientific recognition, having been organized at the Newcastle meeting by the British Association in 1863.

Though the youngest of the sections, its proceedings are singularly fascinating and the attendance always large. The meeting was held in the reading-room of the Free Library. Upon a long, low platform to the left of the entrance there sat facing the audience, a group, not of "scientists," but of really scientific men, their names as familiar to the English reading world as household words. The central figure of the group, Sir William Turner of Edinburgh, was the chairman of the section—a man of striking personality, who read a paper on Weismann and his theories which was listened to with closest attention, the novelty of the doctrines eliciting many expressions of doubt or dissent, though presented by the author of the paper with singular lucidity, fairness, and force. Sir William graced his position well, not merely by reason of intellectual gifts, but by virtue of a personal dignity which admirably comported with his commanding presence. He was a large, handsome man, with a robust frame, an erect carriage, and a notably aggressive air. Seated near him, and firmly supporting his somewhat heavy presence, were a number of men with world-renowned names—Francis Galton, famous for his studies in heredity and the publication of an epochal work; Sir Henry Acland, a learned anthropologist and medical scholar—a thinker of deep and varied scientific resource; Boyd Dawkins, the pioneer "Cave Hunter" and writer upon prehistoric archÆology; John Evans, an able, learned, and industrious writer upon archÆological themes; Doctor Bruce, the eminent historian of the Roman Wall; General Pitt Rivers, equally famous as soldier and savant, a quiet, dark-faced gentleman of easy, pleasant manners, dressed in the plainest fashion and judiciously expending an income of £30,000 a year. His large benefactions for scientific purposes made him truly a Prince of Science, gracious, munificent, and wise. The most striking and conspicuous figure in this solid English line was George Romanes, then in his prime and in apparently perfect health, tall, erect, dark-haired, with pale, handsome features and scholarly, high-bred air—a most impressive personification of intellectual pride and strength. As he sat in the midst of that animated group, cold, proud, silent but keenly observant, he vividly recalled the figure of the famous Kentuckian who once presided over the United States Senate, calmly noting the portents of impending war. In both, one easily discerned the same high qualities of intellect, resolution, and reserved force. By the side of the stately Romanes there sat the learned and vivacious Canon Isaac Taylor, slender, gray-haired, keen-eyed, alert, humorous, and full of tact—one of those clerical scholars and gentlemen who have done so much for English literature and have been a characteristic charm of English social life—men most admirably depicted by the novelist Bulwer in his better moods. Canon Taylor was the most animated figure in this noble English group. Near him sat two foreigners, each in curiously striking contrast with the other; one of these, a tall, ruddy, broad-shouldered blonde, with a strong, lithe, well-knit frame, an eager, alert expression, and a somewhat restless air, was the celebrated Scandinavian explorer Fridjof Nansen, then just twenty-six years of age, but already made world-famous by his recent explorations in the polar seas. At the left of the young Scandinavian, and presenting a remarkable contrast to that impressive figure, there sat a somewhat older man of small stature, of compact, vigorous frame, of clear, dark complexion, keen, clear, thoughtful eyes, and features typically French. The reader recognizes the description at once. It is our old friend, Du Chaillu, who has come to the northern coast of England, and standing in the very pathway of old Scandinavian invasions and confronting some of England's best thinkers upon their own ground, has calmly looked out upon the "grim—troubled" sea of England's Saxon King and boldly proclaimed his theory of the direct Scandinavian origin of the English race.

It was the sensational paper of the day, and even the most phlegmatic English scholar was stirred by this defiant bugle-blast from a philosophic French explorer who was not only disturbing the settled convictions of English thinkers, but still worse was running counter to cherished prejudices of the English race. That historic hyphenation of racial appellatives—"Anglo-Saxon"—was a sacred immemorial conjunction of names representing a fusion of racial elements not to be shaken asunder by a blast upon the ram's horn of a wandering Gaul. The assault was not altogether "Pickwickian"; but the Frenchman was a stout antagonist, and found an incidental confirmation of his theory in the occasional flash of Berserker rage which followed his masterly game of parry and thrust. Nor was he ill-equipped for his controversial work. From certain antiquities which he had found during his recent explorations in the North he inferred the existence of commercial relations between the Northmen of that period and the peoples of the Mediterranean Sea, Rome and Greece being at that time in direct communication with these seafaring peoples of the North. The tribes of Germania, on the contrary, were "a shipless people," and according to the Roman writers were still in an uncivilized state. He said there were settlements in Britain by the Northmen during the Roman occupation; that England was always called by the Northmen one of their Northern lands; that the language of the North and of England were similar in the early times; that the early Northern Kings claimed part of England as their own; that the Northmen were bold and enterprising navigators, pushing their explorations wherever a ship could survive the perils of the sea. On the contrary, neither the Saxons nor the Franks were a seafaring people, either at the time of Charlemagne or at any earlier period.

It was this Scandinavian element which had infused a spirit of enterprise into the English race that they had never lost, and which had made it in all its branches, wherever they had sailed their fleets or pushed their invading columns, the invincible masters of earth and sea. Its resistless movement across the American continent, he declared, was the most dramatic spectacle in history.

This, in brief, was the Frenchman's startling theory; first broached in England on the borders of that rude North Sea which the Vikings had swept in early days, and upon the banks of the peaceful Tyne, where many a Scandinavian rover had moored his little barque. The discussion of M. Du Chaillu's paper took a wide range, all the distinguished ethnologists present—Dawkins, Taylor, Turner, Evans, Galton, and others—participating in this rattling ethnological debate. Du Chaillu, who had very much the attitude of a French suspect in a German camp, maintained throughout his Gallic aplomb, listening with admirable composure and with apparent interest, though his dark skin visibly reddened at times under the critical lash, however courteously applied. Canon Taylor, who evidently was in full sympathy with Du Chaillu's startling views, gave a happy turn to the little imbroglio by a cleverly parodied quotation from Tennyson's Welcome to the Sea-King's Daughter from over the Sea—

the closing line being given with a politely sympathetic inclination of the head toward the gentleman from France, and with a gracious smile more expressive than his words—the smile interpreting to his hearers the startling disclaimer: "It is nothing to me." The clever ecclesiast read a very learned paper at the same meeting on a similar theme, and the two gentlemen who sat near him, Du Chaillu and Nansen, were ideal representatives of two of his four ethnological types, the Auvergnat type of Central France and the long-headed Scandinavian of the North. Indeed, as a matter for courteous rational discussion the question of "Saxon or Norse" had the profoundest interest for the amiable savant, who seemed to possess in perfection that fine philosophical quality of intellect which the French have happily termed justesse d'esprit—a quality of mind in which even the ablest disputant may sometimes be deficient.

But, nothing disconcerted by criticism or compliment, M. Du Chaillu remarked, with cold dignity, as he rose in final response: "Opinions, gentlemen, may differ in England from opinions in France, but the truth on both sides of the Channel is the same"—a sentiment to which all present responded with that fine sympathy and with that perfect courtesy "wherein—to derogate from none—the true heroic English gentleman hath no peer."