LVI. ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. 
poorly sustained in its earlier days, and yet inadequately provided for and hampered by subserviency 
to a Government department, has been creditable to Canada, because of the able men connected with 
it, and also because it has been a Dominion effort, and not frittered away by division between sep- 
arate Provinces. It is evident, however, that it has reached a critical period in its history, and that 
its relations to science and education and practical progress in this country and to scientific opinion 
abroad, must depend upon the action of the people and Government of Canada. Its present build- 
ing is sufficient for offices, laboratories and store rooms but not for a great national museum. The 
building for this should be provided, as already stated, by the Dominion Government, and should be 
adequate to the accommodation not only of the Geological Survey collections, but of collections in 
Natural History and Archeology as well. This expenditure must be undertaken within a very few 
years, if Canada is to take its place worthily among the civilized nations of the world. Would that at 
least the foundations of sucha building on the grounds around us could beshown to our English scien- 
tific visitors next year. 
I foresee also that within a few years the Survey must receive a much larger grant, must have 
local centres, with assistant directors, in the several Provinces, and must be recognized as a distinct 
scientific department. Such a work cannot be limited by ordinary departmental rules; and must, 
like the movements of an army in the field, have freedom of action, so as to meet the exigencies of 
its work from time to time. These changes will come, and in the meantime we have much reason to 
be grateful for what the Geological Survey has done for science as well as for industry; and must 
accept its results as a basis for the knowledge of the geology of our country. With what it has 
done and the added labor of individual workers and local scientific societies and educational institu- 
tions, we have already taken no mean place in the march of Natural Science, and have attained to 
à position from which we may hopefully regard the future. 
In my address of last year I had occasion to remark on the magnificent field for natural history 
presented by the vast and varied regions included in the Dominion; and, when we consider this in 
relation to that, portion of it which we have already cultivated, the outlook is like that over those 
vast western plains, capable of feeding millions, but now lying waste and desolate, No Canadian 
formation has yet been thoroughly explored in its minerals, rocks and fossils, its distribution and the 
questions connected with itsorigin. Few groups of fossils have as yet been thoroughly collected or 
studied. It is true that to a certain extent this applies even to those portions of Europe which 
were the cradle of geology. The transactions of scientifie societies even there are constantly oceu- 
pied with the details of new facts or with the discussion of new generalizations ; but in Canada, with 
its vast area, its few workers, and the engrossing claims of the practical business of life, the open- 
ings for profitable investigation are boundless. 
Here, as in chemical and physical science, it is encouraging to find educational facilities being 
established and eagerly taken advantage of; and the demands for knowledge of this kind in the pro- 
fessions of surveying, engineering and mining must produce a constantly increasing corps of compe- 
tent geological workers. It may be well here to say that one cannot afford in Canada to think 
lightly of the practical applications of science to the business of life. Such applications are not only 
of vital importance to every civilized community, but they afford the only substantial basis for those 
higher investigations in the domain of pure science which again react on material prosperity and 
progress. Thus science and industry mutually aid each other, and in orderto prosper in a young and 
thinly peopled country, must go hand in hand. 
In the department of Canadian biology, some subjects are pretty thoroughly worked up, others 
are disproportionately in arrear, In general the knowledge of our flowering plants and of the ver- 
tebrate animals is far advanced, though this is largely due to naturalists from abroad, In the 
invertebrates, mollusks have been somewhat thoroughly collected, except, perhaps, those of the 
greater depths of the sea. A little good work has been done in the investigation of our Crustacea, 
Worms, Ccelenterates and Protozoa, and the Entomological Society has done something in the vast 
