iQoo] Ami — Annual Addrses. 269 



Ottawa. Such a paper seems necessary at this juncture, but I 

 will postpone this to a later date, and if you will bear with me for 

 a few moments I desire to introduce a subject which long- before 

 this ought to have received attention at our hands. I refer to the 

 life and works of the late Elkanah Billings, the great Canadian 

 palaeontologist, who founded the Canadian Naturalist and Geo- 

 logist, was elected Fellow of the Geological Society of London 

 and of numerous other societies, and assisted Sir William Logan in 

 laying the foundation ot our knowledge of the geology of the older 

 provinces of Canada. Billings wa< a citizen of this city, and in a 

 suitable manner such a society as ours ought to do something to- 

 wards perpetuating his memory. 



As one who for the last twenty years has come in almost 

 daily contact with the works and writings of the late Mr. Billings, 

 I cannot refrain from giving utterance to the statement that 

 it is impossible not to see in him one of the greatest men that 

 Canada has produced. It is further owing to Billings that some 

 one should undertake to give to the world a complete and system- 

 atic list of the various genera and species of fossil organic remains 

 which he described, in a compact form, and likewise to place to- 

 gether in their chronological order his numerous and important 

 writings. The^e various lists, which comprise some fifty-eight 

 new genera and as many as 1,051 new species of fossil organisms? 

 besides a list of his writings, I have undertaken to prepare, and 

 now beg to submit to you for publication. I shall not trouble you 

 by reading these over, but would supplement these remarks by 

 throwing out a suggestion which 1 humbly ask you to consider. 

 Is it not our duty as well as our privilege, as a Club organized to 

 look after the interests of science and scientific research, to see 

 that a suitable memorial or tribute to the memory of such an illus- 

 trious Canadian as Billings ought to be erected in our midst? Two 

 suggestions have occurred to my mind, and both appear feasible 

 and appropriate. These are : — i. By means of a portrait or oil 

 painting of the late E. Billings ; 2, the erection of a memorial 

 tablet to be placed in some conspicuous locality on the strata of 

 our Capital. 



With regard to the former, I may say that when the subject 

 was first mooted, some months ago, a number of gentlemen in- 



