378 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. ix. 



Our library and museum are not yet what tliey should be in 

 a city such as ours. It is in these two departments especially 

 that we expect the practical co-operation of the public. The 

 smallest contributions will be gratefully acknowledged. But 

 may we not also hope that some of our more wealthy citizens 

 may here leave monuments worthy of their memory. 



The report of the past year's proceedings clearly proves that 

 the Society is now established on a sure and solid foundation. 

 Its future scientific success would seem secured if proofs from 

 the past can be trusted. But we who have watched its early 

 struggles and who take a pardonable pride in its present position, 

 would earnestly desire that it may continue to prosper and al- 

 ways tend towards greater perfection. This Society should be 

 as it were an index of our country's ever increasing prosperity. 

 In its museum should be seen the results of the geological enter- 

 prise of Canadian scientists, and some tokens at least of the 

 untold treasures of Canadian soil ; while its well-selected and 

 well-stocked library should prove to the world that Canada's 

 mineral wealth is equalled if not surpassed by her mental worth 

 and work. 



It is sometimes said that ours is a scientific age ; and the won- 

 derful progress of the present century in the physical sciences 

 and the useful arts would seem to warrant the assertion. But 

 it would be well to remember that mere discovery is not science, 

 and that theory is not always truth. The scientist must indeed 

 begin by observation, go on to discovery, make nature disclose 

 and yield up her secret sources of knowledge ; he must learn to 

 read the writing written on the walls of the world. But the true 

 scientist must know more than his alphabet, he must not be con- 

 tent with the mere elementary characters. His observations may 

 be extensive and profound and his collections rich and rare, and 

 as yet he may have only specimens of nature and of nature's work, 

 but specimens of nature are not necessarily specimens of know- 

 ledge, neither are they always proof of science acquired. In a 

 word, nature will give the materials, but from these materials the 

 scientist must build his system by honest and earnest work. 



Now the object of our society is not merely to gather the ma- 

 terials — this, indeed, it will do — but it aims at doing more than 

 this ; its end is not merely manual labor, it is principally and 

 primarily mental work, and this mental work is useful not merely 

 to the worker but to all his fellow-countrymen, to all his fellow- 



