1G3 



Third. Prof. Macoun deliv^ered, on Tliui-sday, the l!)t!i January, 

 an address on " Our Forest Trees," considered both from tl;e geological 

 records, and from their present occurrence. The concluding portion of 

 the address,, calling attention to the enormous annual Avaste of our 

 forests, due to careless lumbering, and frequent bush Mres, appealed 

 especially to the audience, for at Ottawa peo[)le have continual evidences 

 of this destruction presented to them. 



Vv ith reference to the lecturer's theory that our trees originated in 

 the north and had been gradually pressed southward by the increasing 

 cold of their original habitat, the Rev. Prof. Marsan asked why more 

 species of trees were not now found in Europe, where the climate more 

 nearly resembles that of the Tertiary ))eriod, than in Canada. In rejily 

 Prof. Macoun explained that the area of Europe had once l>een much 

 greater, but owing to subsidence large tracts had been covered by the 

 sea, and with the increasing cold the trees were driven seawaixl and 

 finally became extinct, whereas on the American continent the species 

 had an uninterrupted retreat southward. J\Ir. Ami made some inter- 

 esting remarks on the cretaceous formations discovered by Dr. Dawson 

 in British Columbia, and the great forests and animals of which they 

 give evidence, and which show the same agreement with the flora and 

 fauna of Jai)an at that time, as the present forests of that country do 

 to those of America as pointed cut by the lecturer. Prof. Macoun 

 mentioned that at that remote time the Rocky Mountains had not yet 

 Ijeen upheaved, and that a vast plain more or less undulating and 

 broken stretched from the Laurcntides to the Pacific, and i)i'obably 

 oven to Japan. ^Ir. George Holland did not think that the citizens of 

 Ottawa could be accused of indifference in regard to the action of the 

 mill-owners in filling the river with sawdust, as they had no means of 

 preventing it. 1 n the destruction of our foiests there was a race between 

 the lumberman and the settler, and \>y much the greater damage was 

 <lone by the latter. He was oljliged under the laws of the Province 

 trum which he obtained his land to destroy a ceitain quantity of the 

 forest on penalty of eviction, and in his anxiety and endeavour to do so, 

 more of the forest was destroyed in one year by fire, than would be cut 

 iiuwii in a decade liy the lumberman whose interest it was to conserve 

 ills iiiniis. Mr. II. l!. Small desiteil to thank the lecturer for the 



