Tales ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. 
new epoch of activity and progress in the widely extended and useful scientific work of the two 
great Associations of the English-speaking race, and in connection with this may give Canada an 
assured scientific position relatively both to Britain and America. That it will give a powerful and 
healthy stimulus to scientific work and study in Canada there can be no doubt, and it will also bring 
the magnificent features and prospects of this country under the notice of some of the most influen- 
tial leaders of public opinion in the Old World. 
Since our last meeting, one of the older members of the section of Natural Science has been 
removed by death,—George Barnston, of Montreal, a veteran worker in Canadian botany and zoology, 
Mr. Barnston was an example of a class of men who have done much for Canadian science. Sent 
out as a young man into the domains of the Hudson’s Bay Company, he was struck with the new 
aspects of nature presented to him in the wilderness, and immediately began to observe and collect. 
Ultimately he not only made large collections but became an accomplished naturalist in many 
departments ; and, when retired from active life, in the leisure of his later years, he occupied himself 
usefully and happily in arranging and determining his collections, in enriching educational and 
scientific museums with duplicates from his ample stores, and in preparing for publication the 
notes he had made. He was not only a diligent naturalist but a man of kind and amiable character, 
loved and respected by all who knew him. He passed away on the 14th of March last, in the 83rd 
year of hisage. In the course of his connection with the North-West and Hudson Bay Companies, he 
was stationed at various points from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to British Columbia, He crossed the 
Rocky Mountains into British Columbia, as early as 1825 or 1826, making the return journey in 
the winter on snowshoes. When in British Columbia he established the first factory on the Frazer 
River. When at York Factory in 1824, he assisted in fitting out Franklin’s party, and at Norway 
House, thirty years later, he aided the expeditions under Rae and Anderson and Stewart. In 1867 
he retired from the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company and took up his residence in Montreal, 
where he remained until his death, In 1872-73 he was President of the Natural History Society of 
Montreal. The most important of his papers are the following, published in the Canadian Naturalist 
and Geologist :—On the geographical distribution of the Ranunculacee in British America, 1857; on 
the geographical distribution of plants in the British possessions in North America, 1858; on the 
geographical distribution of Orucifere and of the genus Allium, 1859; sketch of the life of Douglas, 
the botanist, 1860; on the swans and geese of the Hudson’s Bay Territories, 1861; on the genus 
Lutra, 1863; on plants collected by Mr. J. Richardson, in British Columbia, 1878. In 1860 a valuable 
report was prepared and published by Mr, W. S. D’Urban on the Coleoptera in Mr. Barnston’s collec- 
tion. 
Leaving the work already attempted by the Society, and turning to the future, our prospects for 
the present meeting are cheering, a large number of papers being offered to our acceptance, and 
these, as far as can be judged from their titles and authors, worthy of the Society, But it may be 
profitable to look beyond this, and to measure the outlook of Canadian science and literature in their 
relation to the Society by the aspects which they present to us now, In attempting this, I naturally 
turn more especially to the scientific side of the question, though, as I shall endeavor to show, this 
cannot be altogether dissociated from literature. 
For practical purposes, there are two great divisions of scientific work, that which depends 
for its prosecution mainly on experiment, and on appliances of the nature of apparatus, and that 
which depends principally on observation, in connection with the study of specimens, The former 
includes the greater part of chemical and physical research, and the latter the various departments 
of geological and biological work, There is, of course, no decided and impassable line of separation, 
for some parts of the work of the physicist and the chemist are strictly observational, and, on the 
other hand, the observations of the geologist and biologist depend more or less on apparatus and 
experiment. Still, in the main, there is a distinction which is of an appréciable character. 
The first of these groups of scientific studies, that which relates to physics and chemistry, is 
