414 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec. 



sections there is a glut of papers, and it is amusing to see the 

 anxiety of some claimants for fame to get their papers in a good 

 place on the list, while the committee is usually desirous to secure 

 for good or popular papers the best places. On the whole, con- 

 sidering the hurried manner in which the work is done, there 

 seems to be much fairness, though many who are disappointed 

 complain of cliques and favoritism. 



Prof. Phillips, the president of the year, and one of the founders 

 of the Association, is a man of marked features, florid and light com- 

 plexion, full eye, and large bald head, with thin whitened hair. 

 His countenance is full of genial kindness and quick intelligence, 

 and his step and manner are almost boyish in their elasticity and 

 vivacity. His first scientific work was done on the Yorkshire 

 coast, and he is now professor of geology at Oxford. He is remark- 

 able for that width of information and accuracy of detail which 

 characterise Dana among the American geologists ; and, like him, he 

 is a conscientious man, and a cautious generaliser ; always to be 

 found in the right place on moral questions, and never carried off 

 his feet by the rush of novel speculations and hasty conclusions. 

 In such questions as the much controverted glacial theories, he 

 busies himself with accurate experiments and calculations of the 

 crushing weight of columns of ice, and similar essential data ; and he 

 has a little astronomical observatory in which he applies, not his 

 hammer, but his telescope to the planets, and has worked out 

 some interesting points in what may be called, for want of 

 a better name, the physical geography of the planet Mars, 

 showing approximately the distribution of its land and water, 

 the movements of its clouds, the advance and recession of its 

 polar snow-patches, and the constitution and temperature of its 

 atmosphere. He is equally at home, and a diligent worker in 

 fossils. Phillips is also a teaching geologist. I spent a most 

 pleasant day with him and his able colleagues, Dr. Acland and 

 Prof. Rolleston, at Oxford, in studying the admirable arrangements 

 in the new museum and scientific library of that university — in- 

 stitutions which are now, thanks to these eminent men and their 

 colleagues, second to none in England, in facilities for the study of 

 physical and natural science. In all that relates to the arrange- 

 ment of specimens for study, and affording due facilities to the 

 student, Prof. Phillips is as careful and enthusiastic as in his 

 original investigations ; and I can imagine no man better suited 

 to cultivate scientific enthusiasm among students, and to send 



