No. 6.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 375 



vancement of Science to meet in Montreal in the summer of 

 1882, if on enquiry this should be found practicable and ex- 

 pedient." 



Major Latour then addressed the meeting as follows : 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



In the absence of our learned and worthy President, I have 

 been asked as ex 1st Vice-President, and as one of the oldest 

 members of the Montreal Natural History Society, to deliver an 

 address at this annual meeting. I could wish indeed that a 

 more fitting and competent person had been chosen to represent 

 the Society on this our fifty-third anniversary ; for I fear I shall 

 be able to satisfy neither myself nor you, nor do justice to the 

 work of the Society. However I will do my best, and I ask 

 your kind attention rather to what I say than to my manner of 

 saying it. 



I would first take a retrospective survey of the Society, that 

 from seeing what it has been in the past we may the better 

 understand its present position and its future prospects. In the 

 year 1827 the Natural History Society was founded. The Earl 

 of Dalhousie was its first Patron, and its first President was 

 Stephen Sewell, Esq. In 1832 the Society was incorporated by 

 an Act of the Provincial Parliament, and in 1833 this Act re- 

 ceived the Royal sanction. In the beginning the members were 

 few but they were earnest and devoted men, determined to make 

 up for their lack of numbers by ardent zeal and honest work. 

 Wishing to show signs of life and earnest action from the very 

 beginning, the Society determined to give proof of its existence 

 and its worth by having essays on scientific subjects read at its 

 meetings and afterwards given to the public. Accordingly in 

 1835 two very interesting and instructive essays were prepared ; 

 one " On the Physical History of Rivers in general, and the St. 

 Lawrence in particular,'' and another ■' On the circumstances 

 affecting Climate in general and Canada in particular." The 

 Society would show that it was interested in national as well as 

 natural history and science, and therefore it had circulars sent 

 to the various corresponding members and to the Governor of 

 the Hudson's Bay Territory, calling attention to the subject of 

 Meteorology in British North America. It was also partly at the 

 suggestion of the Society that the Government thought of 

 founding the Geological Survey of the Province ; and this I may 



