PROCEEDINGS FOR 1905 VII 



8. — Statue of Cartier. 



On the 23rd of July next the people of St. Malo will unveil the 

 statue erected to their illustrious fellow citizen, Jacques Cartier. The 

 occasion is one to incite deep interest in Canada, the field of Cartier's 

 discoveries and explorations. With him commences the history of this 

 country, for, although its settlement began with Champlain, Cartier 

 revealed its existence to the world. On the day following the in- 

 auguration of the statue it is proposed to fix a commemorative tablet on 

 the Manoir des- Portes-Cartier, in the parish of Paramé, near St. Malo, 

 the summer residence of the great navigator, and the place from which 

 he drew his title of Sieur de Limoilou. Preparations are being made 

 to celebrate the occasion, and an invitation has been sent to the Presi- 

 dent of the Society to attend the fêtes. It is a formal engraved in- 

 vitation, and nothing special to this Society appears upon it; but the 

 occasion is of too much interest to pass unnoticed here. 



9. — Anxiversary cf t:ie Society. 



The CouiK-il would remind the Society that it is approaching its 

 twenty-fifth anniveisary. On the 29th and 30th of December, 1881, 

 at the instance of the Governor-General of Canada, the Marquess of 

 Lome (now the Duke of Argyll), a number of gentlemen met and drew 

 up the provisional constitution on which the Society was founded. The 

 first officers, with one exception, have passed away. Sir William Daw- 

 son, Sir Daniel Wilson, the Hon. P. J. 0. Chauveau, Faucher de St. 

 Maurice, Sterry Hunt, Charles Carpmael, A. E. C. Selwyn, George 

 Lawson, Sir John Bourinot, all wrote their names large in the scientific 

 and literary history of this country during their active and useful lives. 

 The primary idea, however, arose in the mind of the present Duke of 

 Argyll, and, in developing his plan, he called to his assistance the most 

 eminent men in Canada in science and literature at the time. The 

 name " Eoyal Society of Canada " was specially sanctioned by Her 

 Majesty Queen Victoria, and an Act of Incorporation was obtained from 

 Parliament. The subsequent history of the Society is sufficiently 

 known. Its published Transactions are highly esteemed, and requests 

 for the volumes come in from learned bodies all over the world. 



The Council submit to the Society whether some special notice of 

 the twenty-fifth year of its existence should not be taken and the occa- 

 sion marked in some special manner. The records of the initiatory 

 proceedings are set forth in detail at the beginning of the first volume 

 of the Society's Transactions. 



