No. 3.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 165 



ADDRESS BY PRINCIPAL DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S. 



The scientific business of the Society in the past winter lias 

 included the reading at our monthly meetings of ten papers, 

 comprising a considerable range of subjects. In Geology we 

 have had papers by Dr. Harrington and myself on the mineral- 

 ogy and mode of occurrence of Apatite ; by Dr. Hunt on the 

 various new points which engaged his attention in Europe in 

 the summer of 1878 ; by Mr, Selwyu and Mr. Macfarlane oq 

 the disputed Stratigraphy of Eastern Canada ; by Mr. Donald 

 on the remains of a Fossil Elephant; by ^myself on the Extinct 

 Floras of America. In other departments were Notes on Ca- 

 nadian Ferns by Mr. Goode ; on an Esquimaux Bow and Arrow 

 by Mr. Taylor ; on the results of an Excursion to St. Jerome by 

 Mr. Marler and Mr. Caulfield ; on the Water supply of Mont- 

 real by Dr. Baker Edwards. 



Of all these subjects that which has perhaps excited the greatest 

 amount of attention, and which best deserves notice here, is the 

 much disputed Geology of the Quebec Group and the associated 

 rocks in the Province of Quebec. This is a subject which has 

 long been in controversy, and which is mixed up with some of 

 the most difficult questions in general geology and in the local 

 structure of the eastern slope of the American continent, both in 

 Canada and the United States. It is a subject on which I have 

 up to the present time avoided any public expression of opinion : — 

 not that I have been indijffereut to it — no geologist could be so 

 — nor that I have had no opinions of my own. Having travelled 

 over and examined large portions of the*territory occupied by 

 these rocks, it was impossible to avoid arriving at some interpre- 

 tation of them. But the subject was too intricate to be lightly 

 treated, and others were working at it in detail, and with advan- 

 tages of public aid which I did not possess. Now, however, it 

 comes up before this Society, introduced in the elaborate and 

 able paper of Mr. Selwyn, followed by the criticisms of Mr. 

 Macfarlane ; and these supplemented by Dr. Sterry Hunt's ex- 

 position of his own well-known views, in the discussion of Mr. 

 Maofarlane's paper. Farther, in connection with all these various 

 and somewhat discordant opinions, the conclusions arrived at by 

 our late lamented colleague. Sir W. E. Logan, have been can- 

 vassed and to some extent set aside. 



In these circumstances duty requires that some extended 



