May 23, 1859.] BEITISH NORTH AMERICA. 317 



abounds, and is largely used in the manufacture of candles. It 

 will be curious and instructive if we should find that as animal 

 oils .become scarce and dear in the progress of society, their place 

 can be supplied from remote and opposite quarters of the world 

 by oils derived from vegetables. 



America. 



British North America. — The important results of the exploring 

 expedition under Captain J. Palliser, as communicated by the Colo- 

 nial Office, and as dwelt upon in awarding the Founder's Gold 

 Medal to that officer, have necessarily given great satisfaction to us, 

 proceeding as they do from men who were especially recommended 

 for this public service to Her Majesty's Government by our. Society 

 as well as by the Royal Society. 



When Captain Palliser first proposed to make this exploration, 

 one of the main points of interest to geographers was a survey of 

 that part of the Rocky Mountains to the north of the United States 

 boundary which separates the great tracts now named British 

 Columbia from the eastern mass of British North America. Her 

 Majesty's Government deemed it, however, of paramount import- 

 ance that, in the first instance, the nature of the ground between 

 Lakes Superior and Winnipeg should be accurately surveyed, in 

 order to set at rest all questions of colonization as dependent on 

 the possibility of making practicable routes of communication. For 

 example, whether the Canadas might be brought into profitable 

 communication with the Red River Settlement. The remoter or 

 more western explorations were destined to develop the true 

 nature of the great Prairie region, as watered by the Xorth and 

 South Saskatchewan rivers and their affluents. Collaterally, it 

 was resolved, if possible — and mainly at the instance of this 

 Society — to determine the elevation of the Rocky Mountains in 

 those parallels of latitude, and to point out the passes in them by 

 which communication might be opened out between the vast country 

 occupied by the Hudson Bay Company and the great British sea- 

 board on the Pacific. 



In the award of the Patron's Medal to Captain Palliser, allusions 

 have been made to some of the principal results obtained by the 

 researches of the expedition under his orders. But I should not do 

 justice to the leader and his associates, nor to my own feelings, were 

 I not to add a few words of explanation and comment. The first 

 year's labours were necessarily of more importance to the Govern- 



