academy of sciences] SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES 191 



Mr. President; as I sat down after the remarks I made a few minutes ago, I noticed that the speaker who 

 had preceded me and whose statement I attempted to correct, made a threatening gesture in my direction. 

 That caused me to reflect on what I had said; and upon reflecting I discovered that I was wrong. I therefore 

 wish to withdraw my remarks. 



As the two disputants were walking to lunch together in the noon hour, the one who had 

 made the "threatening gesture" expressed his surprise that the other should take the trouble 

 to announce his mistake before the whole meeting; to which the senior and wiser disputant 

 replied: 



If you have made a mistake, the very best thing you can do is to correct it yourself as soon as possible, so 

 that no one else shall correct it for you. 



The nominating committee of the Geological Society wisely suggested that as the society 

 had had James Hall, James D. Dana, and Alexander H. Winched for its first three presidents, 

 GUbert should be its fourth and preside at the meeting to be held at the end of 1892 in Ottawa, 

 or as he himself phrased it in his presidential address, in "the land of the sable and the beaver" 

 after a "three-year sojourn in the land of the raccoon and the opossum." The address was 

 on the "Problems of the continents," and its avowed purpose was not either to enlarge upon 

 recent contributions or to summarize them, but to state " some of the great unsolved problems 

 which the continents proposed to the coming international congress of geologists" at the 

 World's Fair in Chicago the following summer. It was a thought-provoking presentation, but 

 less satisfying to passive hearers, who might wish chiefly to learn conclusions, than to active 

 minds, who were themselves pressing forward toward the unknown in geological science. He 

 doubted the persistence of continental growth, and advised that the inquirer, if he would 

 reach the truth, should "go behind the postulates" on which that widely accepted view was 

 based ; he considered the relations of crustal rigidity and isostacy as conditions of continental 

 maintenance; and he was, as the lamented Barrell later put it, " twenty years in advance of his 

 time in the appreciation of the large significance of unconformities" as indices of continental 

 movements. The address was characterized fey a forward-looking comprehensiveness. Its 

 closing passage is as follows: 



The subject of the continents affords no less than half a dozen great problems, whose complete solution 

 belongs to the future. It is not altogether pleasant to deal with a subject in regard to which the domain of our 

 ignorance is so broad; but if we are optimists we may be comforted by the reflection that the geologists of this 

 generation at least will have no occasion, like Alexander, to lament a dearth of worlds to conquer. 



The printed proceedings of this well conducted society duly record, regarding the winter 

 meeting at Ottawa, that on Wednesday, December 28, 1892 — 



at 10.20 a m the President called the Society to order and after a word of salutation introduced His Excellency, 

 the Governor General of Canada . . . who extended a hearty welcome to the Fellows of the Society. Science, 

 he said was cosmopolitan and did not admit of distinctions of race, creed or national boundary; as far as science 

 was concerned, all were one brotherhood. He assured the visitors that they would be shown every hospitality 

 while in the city. The President made reply to the welcome of His Excellency, referring in complimentary 

 terms to Canadian hospitality. 



But how pale is this formal record compared to the informal narrative of the event in 

 one of Gilbert's letters: 



We had a good meeting and lots of fun "on the side." They were disposed to make much of us and we 

 were not indisposed. His Excellency, the Governor General of Canada, gave us an address of welcome and after- 

 ward a reception, and not only he but the Premier and the Minister of the Interior attended our dinner and 

 listened to some of our proceedings. . . . The Local Committee was in a fever of anxiety lest we Americans 

 would fail to show proper deference to His Excellency, and the manifestations thereof added to our entertain- 

 ment. On the day of our opening session, H. E. repaired to his office and (doubtless said his little speech over 

 while he) waited to be summoned by messenger. The L. C. proposed that we call the meeting to order and mark 

 time while H. E. was summoned, and I compromised by agreeing to call to order when H. E. was seen actually 

 on his way across the ground. He was met at the door of the building by the President of the Royal Society 

 of Canada and the Director of the Geological Survey who escorted him upstairs. I met him at the door of the 

 room and escorted him to his chair, while the G. S. A. and the L. C. rose and cheered. H. E. was followed by 

 an A. D. C. (aid-de-camp) in gaudy uniform with a sword altogether too large for him, but H. E. himself wore 

 the ordinary togs of a gentleman. Then he made his speech and I made mine, and H. E. and the A. D. C. went 

 out. 



