PROCEEDINGS FOR 1886. XIX 
over Jand and sea. Yet such is the world’s inheritance, won for her in the ardent search for abstract 
truth, in the unselfish devotion to pure science. We can no more look for the practical fruits of 
science without such preliminary labour, than for the reaping of the harvest where there has been 
no seed-time, 
The institution of this Royal Society by the Canadian Legislature is in itself a recognition of the 
value thus assigned to pure science. By our constitution it is provided “that the advice and assis- 
tance of the Society shall at all times be at the disposal of the Government ;” and in no way can this 
be more legitimately rendered than by interposing to prevent a premature demand for economic 
results arresting the researches of science. We are not likely to forget that Canada is still a young 
country—favoured in many ways on that very account, by reason of the unimpeded course that thus 
lies before us; but also with some of the difficulties incident to national youth. The learned societies 
of Europe have, in many cases, endowments at their disposal, which enable them to render efficient 
aid to science, and to issue costly works dealing with subjects such as no publisher would view with 
favour. No such endowments as yet exist in Canada; and occasions will occur when it may be our 
duty—looking to the true interests of the Dominion—to recommend to the Legislature a liberal 
encouragement of the higher work of pure science in various departments, without neglecting those 
immediate practical results which the country reasonably looks for as evidence of the enlistment of 
science in the service of the people. 
The volume of Transactions now issuing from the press will, I believe, be found in some respects 
in advance of its predecessors, and do no discredit to the representatives of Canadian letters and 
science. I have already referred to some of the contributions embodied in the work of Sections I and 
II, when inviting to a line of research, in which the biologist, no less than the philologist and the 
littérateur, will find a legitimate field. The contributions to Section III will also be found to include 
valuable work, alike in pure physics and mathematics, and in their practical application. The Council 
of the Society had occasion during the past year to press on the Government the desirableness, in 
the interest of our commercial navy, of carrying out a systematic hydrographic survey, not only in 
the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, but along our whole Atlantic and Pacific coasts, so as to follow up the 
work already so efficiently executed by the United States Geodetic and Coast Survey. In connection 
with this, attention may be fitly directed now to a valuable paper on “ Tidal Observations in Cana- 
dian Waters.” I may also be permitted, without invidious distinction, to note in Section IV the 
continuance, by Mr. Matthew of St. Jobn, of his description of the Cambrian fossils, adding consider 
ably to our knowledge, and keeping Canada in advance of other parts of the Continent on this subject. 
A contribution by Prof. Ramsey Wright on the anatomy of an interesting group of fishes, will, I 
believe, be found to introduce a style of work of which little has hitherto been done in Canada. The 
catalogue of Canadian butterflies, by Mr. Saunders, renders our knowledge more complete and system- 
atic; and gives information as to their local distribution, which may be of practical significance in 
relation to a branch of animal life, which, however beautiful, is regarded with well-grounded dis- 
favour by the agriculturist. Sir William Dawson’s paper on the latest Cretaceous discoveries of 
fossil plants in the Northwest, adds to North American geology a new horizon of Lower Cretaceous 
plants not previously known, including a number of novel and interesting species. I may also refer 
here to the contribution by Professor Chapman of a piece of local economic geology in his account of 
the Wallbridge hematite mine, in order to note in passing that this was, I believe, one of the deposits 
resorted to by the aborigenes, and used as a pigment. Among the primitive native implements in 
the Redpath Museum, at Montreal, may be seen the antler picks and shells used by the Indians in 
collecting the hematite for their own purposes. 
In this slight and very partial glance at some among the subjects treated of in the new volume, 
my notice is necessarily meagre, as I have only had access to some of its detached sheets; and 
therefore cannot pretend to aim at any exhaustive review of the work embraced in its varied 
contents. By our very constitution, as a Society, alike scientific and literary, the range of themes is 
