-No. 5.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 277 



ANNUAL MEETING, 



Held May 18th, 1874. 



The minutes of the last annual meetino- having been read by 

 ^he Recording Sectetary, the following address was delivered by 

 the President, Principal Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S. 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



The scientific work of this Society in the year which closes to« 

 night, is not so remarkable for its variety as for the interest and 

 importance of the subjects to which it relates. A list of the 

 papers read is appended to this address ;* but I shall confine 

 myself principally to two subjects embraced in their scope. One 

 is the bearing of the dredging operations of our colleague, Mr. 

 Whiteaves, on the Post-pliocene Geology of Canada, in connec- 

 tion with other oceanic and ireological researches. The second 

 :is the growth of our information as to the oeological structure 

 of those great plains of the West, whose profitable occupancy is 

 ;now so important a problem for our statesmen. 



Mr. Whiteaves in the past summer was chiefly occupied with 



the exploration of the great southern Bay of the Gulf of St. 



Lawrence, a basin of shallow water nearly semicircular in form, 



and in which is set the beautiful Island of Prince Edward. It 



is protected to some extent by the encompassing land, by its 



^limited depth, and by the islands and shoals stretching across 



its mouth, from the influence of those cold northern currents 



which pervade all the middle and northern parts of the Gulf, 



and give to its fauna an almost Arctic character : it thus forms 



a peculiar and exceptional zoological province. The marine 



animals of Northumberland Strait were those with which I was 



myself most familiar in early youth, and I still possess many 



"drawings of the more minute forms, made under the microscope 



for my amusement, before I had received any scientific training 



:in natural history. In my cabinet there has been for the last 



thirty years a nearly complete representation of its mollusks, 



and I was even then aware from the observations of Gould and 



-others in New England, of the specially southern character of 



"this group of animals, though at that time I had no means of 



publishing my observations, and the importance of these pecu- 



iiarities of distribution had scarcely dawned upon the minds of 



•See preceding pages 273, 274. 



