igoi[ Ami — Annum. Address. 211 



we can only say that in Dr. Whiteaves, the Government has had 



an earnest and painstaking officer as successor to the eminent 



name of Billings. 



The Portrait. 



The portrait before us is the result of the work of our fellow 

 townsman, Mr. Charles E. Moss, R.C.A., whom we are pleased to 

 see with us this evening.' It is a faithful reproduction of that ex- 

 cellent likeness of Mr. Billings, now hanging in the Lecture Hall 

 of the Natural History Society of Montreal by W. Raphael, Esq., 

 painted in 1876, from a photograph by Notman in 1861. 



It is the intention of the Committee to have a tablet prepared 

 for the portrait with the following inscription : — 



ELKANAH BILLINGS, Esq., F.G.S., 

 Palaeontologist from 1856 to 1876. 



Presented to the Geol. Survey of Canada by a Committee of the 



Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club, Dec. nth, 1900, 



on behalf of his friends and admirers. 



I will now formally present this memento of Mr. Billings to 

 the Dominion Government as represented here this evening by 

 Dr. Geo. M. Dawson, the Director and Deputy Minister of the 

 Geological Survey Department. 



The following is a synopsis of Dr. Dawson's apt remarks 

 when accepting the portrait : 



My duty this evening is an easy and a very pleasing one, con- 

 sisting as it does in receiving, on the part of the Geological 

 Survey Department, this excellent portrait of Elkanah Billings, 

 who for many years was Palaeontologist to the Survey. I can 

 promise it a place of honour near the collections to which his 

 labours were devoted, and I trust a still more conspicuous position 

 may be found for it in the new and spacious Museum in which 

 we hope, before long, to see these collections adequately housed. 



In thus honouring Billings's memory the Ottawa Field- 

 Naturalists' Club, have, I feel, equally done themselves honour. It 

 is particularly appropriate that a Committee of members of this 

 organization has been instrumental in arranging for the production 



* The excellent frontispiece to this number is reproduced from the portrait 

 by the Grip Printing & Publishing Co., Toronto. J. F., A'g Ed. 



