3i2 - THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi, 



3rd Monthly Meeting, Jan. 29th, 1872. 



The Secretary announced a donation of more than 120 volumes 

 of the Zoological Catalogues of the British Museum, from the 

 Trustees of that Institution, to whom a special vote of thanks 

 was unanimously voted. 



Prof G. F. Armstrong, M.A., F.G.S., and Dr. B. J. Harrington 

 were elected ordinary members, and Sir G. Duncan Gibb, Bart., 

 M.A., M.D., LL.D,, &c., a corresponding member of the Society. 



Principal Dawson made a communication on the Physical 

 Geography of Prince Edward Island. The paper commenced 

 with noticing the form and geographical position of the Island as 

 a crescent-shaped and much indented expanse of undulating and 

 fertile land, more than 100 miles in length, lying in the almost 

 semicircular bend formed by the southern side of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, and separated from the neighbouring coasts of Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick by Northumberland Strait. The 

 principal geological formations are the Triassic red sandstones, 

 the almost equally red sandstones of the Upper Carboniferous 

 rocks, which extend across from Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 

 wick, and appear in limited areas on the^Yest Coast and in Hills- 

 borough Bay. The soil of the Island is almost throughout a fer- 

 tile red loam, and the beautifully undulating surface, bright green 

 fields contrasting with the red soil, frequent groves and belts of 

 trees, and neat homesteads, give an appearance of beauty and 

 rural comfort not surpassed by any portion of America. The 

 Island is said to be more thickly peopled and more' highly culti- 

 vated than any other portion of British America of equal extent. 

 Its climate is much more mild and equable than that of Eastern 

 Canada. In July last the horse-mowing machines, which are 

 almost universally used, were to be seen everywhere laying down 

 a crop of hay not to be surpassed in any country, and the wide 

 fields of clean and tall oats presented a magnificent appearance. 

 The potato and turnip are largely cultivated, and wheat to a less 

 extent. In the end of July, however, the author visited a field 

 on the estate of the Hon. Mr. Pope, where a very heavy crop of 

 winter wheat was being cut. The natural fertility of the soil is 

 largely aided by the application to it of mussel or oyster mud 

 obtained in inexhaustible quantities from the old oyster beds of 

 the bays and creeks, by means of dredging machines mounted on 

 rafts in summer and on the ice in winter. 



