No. 1.] THE president's ADDRESS. 3 



Beside these, we have reprinted in the Naturalist several im- 

 portant papers by Dr. Hunt, Mr. Billings, and others, with the 

 view of making them more fully known to students of nature in 

 Canada. 



ERRONEOUS PUBLIC OPINIONS. 



Of the scientific value of these papers, and of the amount of 

 original work which they evince, it is unnecessary that I should 

 speak ; but it is sometimes alleged that societies of this kind are 

 of no practical utility ; that their labours are merely the indus- 

 trious idleness of unpractical dreamers and enthusiasts. Nothing' 

 could be more unjust than such an assertion. Science, cultivated 

 for its own sake, and without any reference to practical applica- 

 tions, is a noble and elevating pursuit, full of beneficial influence 

 on mental culture, and by the training which it affords, fitting- 

 men for the practical business of life better than most other 

 studies. Further, it is by this disinterested pursuit of science, for 

 its own sake, that many of the most practically useful arts and 

 improvements of arts have had their birth. Besides this, most of 

 the investiji-ations of the naturalist have a direct bearins; on uti- 

 litarian pursuits. In illustration of this statement I need go no 

 further than our own last volume. An eminent example is afforded 

 by the paper of Mr. Gordon Broome on Canadian phosphates. 

 Here we have set before us three pregnant classes of facts : First 

 — Phosphates are essential ingredients of all our cultivated plants, 

 and especially of those which are most valuable as food. In order 

 that they may grow, these plants must obtain phosphates from the 

 soil, and if the quantity be deficient so will the crop. Of the ashes 

 of wheat, 50 per cent consist of phosphoric acid, and without this 

 the wheat cannot be produced ; nor if produced would it be so 

 valuable as food. Second — The culture of cereals is constantly 

 abstracting this valuable substance from our soils. The auilyses 

 of Dr. Hunt have shown long ago that the principal cause of the 

 exhaustion of the worn-out wheat lands of Canada is the with- 

 drawal of the phosphates, and that fertility cannot be restored 

 without replacing these. In 292,533 tons of wheat and wheaten 

 flour exported from Montreal in 1869, there were, according to 

 Mr. Broome, 2,340 tons of phosphoric acid, and this was equal 

 to the total impoverishment of more than 70,000 acres of fertile 

 land. To replace it would require, according to 31r. Broome, 

 5,850 tons of the richest natural phosphate of lime or 13,728 

 tons of super-phosphates as ordinarily sold, at a cost of more than 



