424 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec. 



furnaces to have tWO-thirds of the heat produced absolutely lost, 

 while it would seem that in steam-engines no less than nine-tenths 

 of the force generated is wasted. 



In connection with this, and with a matter of interest to this 

 country, where peat is already being worked, it was stated that a 

 material named Torbite, suitable for the purposes to which coal is 

 applied, may be made from peat, and sold at from 10s. to 12s. per 

 ton, and that there are in Great Britain and Ireland no less than 

 five millions of acres of peat, with an average depth of twenty 

 feet. 



The Section of Statistics was presided over by Lord Stanley, a 

 man of unprepossessing appearance, with a somewhat nervous 

 manner, but a close thinker and able speaker, markedly dis- 

 tinguished by a certain dogmatic utterance of plain common sense. 

 In his opening address, he thus vindicated the claim of statistics 

 to & f>kce in the work of the Association : 



" It has been questioned how far such subjects ought to form 

 part of the business of a strictly scientific association ; and I do 

 not think the question unreasonable, for it must be admitted that, 

 while our political economy itself, in its present state, is rather a 

 collection of practical maxims, supported by reasoning, and tested 

 by experience, than a science, in the same sense that astronomy or 

 optics is entitled to that name, the topics to which the statistical 

 method is applicable are infinitely various, and have little in com- 

 mon except this one characteristic — that in every case we appeal 

 either to the numerical test of accuracy in figures, or else to fixed 

 and recognised rules, which are assumed to have the same kind of 

 certainty as prevails in physical science. How far that assump- 

 tion holds good in practice must depend on the judgment both of 

 those who read papers, and of those who comment upon them. 

 The truth is, in my opinion, that our functions here are rather those 

 of suggesting and stimulating than of originating thought. Dis- 

 cussion, no doubt, we shall have, and in discussion new ideas are 

 constantly generated, and new lights thrown npon previously 

 unfamiliar topics ; but it is not in crowded meetings, it is not in 

 debating speeches, that any profound and original investigation 

 can be carried on. Meetings like ours answer two purposes, apart 

 from that of social enjoyment; one is the diffusion — not the 

 origination, but the diffusion— of ideas. Books and newspapers 

 and reviews, no doubt, are the main agents for doing that work. 

 Still it is, I think, indisputable that as seeing is proverbially 



