Natural History Society of Montreal. 143 



remaining upon it a debt of about $2,000. It is very desirable 

 that we should be freed from this burden, and our only hope for 

 this is the continued bounty of our friends, which we trust still 

 further to stimulate by the offer of life memberships, giving a 

 substantial interest in the Society in exchange for contributions to 

 its building fund. It might be supposed that after so large efforts 

 on our part, we might successfully urge claims on the Legislature 

 for a grant from the public funds; but we have learned from 

 experience that Government regards the scientific tendencies of 

 the citizens of Montreal as in no need of its fostering care. To 

 other cities, smaller it is true, and less wealthy, liberal grants 

 have been made for scientific purposes; but our independence 

 has been fully acknowledged, in the past year, by the non-pay- 

 ment of even the pittance of .£50 per annum formerly accorded. 

 I would not have it understood that we wish to approach the 

 Legislature as a pauper institution. With our present building, 

 collection and membership, and with a self-supporting journal of 

 our proceedings, supported by the enterprise of a Montreal pu- 

 blisher, we are in a position to say that we can faithfully apply 

 for the benefit of Canadian science any means placed within our 

 reach, and can even, as in the case of the grant for the meeting 

 of the American Association in Montreal, treble such sums by our 

 own contributions of means and effort ; still, if we receive no such 

 aid, we are content with the advantages derived from our position 

 in this great centre of population. (Cheers.) Natural History 

 teaches us that it is by no accident that the greatest and most 

 prosperous city of British America is placed on the Island of 

 Montreal. In its situation half-way between Cape Race and Ford 

 du Lac ; at the confluence of our two greatest rivers ; opposite 

 the great national highway of the Hudson andChamplain Valley; 

 at the point where the St. Lawrence ceases to be navigable for 

 ocean ships, and where that great river, for the last time in its 

 course to the sea, affords a gigantic water power ; at the meeting 

 point of the two races that divide Canada, and in the centre of a 

 fertile plain nearly as large as all England ; in these we recognise 

 a guarantee for the greatness of Montreal, not based on the frail 

 tenure of human legislation, but on the unchanging decrees of the 

 Eternal, as stamped on the world that he has made. (Applause.) 

 We know, from the study of these indications, that were Canada 

 to be again a wilderness, and were a second Cartier to explore it, 

 he might wander over all the great regions of Canada and the 



