XXIV E(;YAL society of CANADA. 



1(, will bo 60011 tliat the exceptionally great opportunities presented to usfbr the collection of 

 ctlinological facts at the present time, when now country is being explored, and the advance of 

 Eui'opcan settlement is displacing the aboj'iginal inhabitants, or disturbing their pi-imitivc modes of 

 life and thought, are being availed of by our members and correspondents. At ]5rc8cnl wo cannot 

 fuUj' realize the value for future use of such information, obtained by coiiifietent observers, from 

 actual observation and contact with these native races. 



In the third Section, Mathematical, Physical and Chemical Sciences, Mr. Macfarlane, the President 

 of the Section, tievotcd his Address chietly to what must be regarded as the great triumph of modern 

 chemistry in its industrial asjDect, one that has contributed to the world's wealth to an extent far 

 beyond what is generally known — the Utilization of Waste. The historj' ol chemical technology for 

 the last thirty years is essentially the history of the utilization of'waste rnatei'ials in chemical manufiic- 

 tures, mechanical jirocosscs and the ordinar3' operations of civilized life. Mr. Macfarlane illustrates 

 the results of efforts in this direction by striking facts, such as the desolytion caused by the Fieibcrg 

 smelting works, which at first destroj-ed the crops and forests around; when the blighting clouds 

 were condensed and manufactured into sulphuiic acid, glass, metals, and metallic salts, the verdant 

 fields and forests wei'c brought back again, and the noxious waste converted into a source of j)rofit. 

 So, the i-ecovcry of combined nitrogen fi'om the waste gases of the iron woi'ks of the Clyde is another 

 example on a great scale. The elimination of phosphorus from iron and steel by means of a basic 

 slag, has not only imjuovcd the qualities and cheapened the price — thus extending the usefulness of 

 these materials so essential to our civilization — but the waste slags, which now contain the phos- 

 phorus, are found applicable to agriculiural use, the material so injurious to the iron and steel being 

 to the soil a valuable feitilizer. The bye products of the soda manufacture, the recovery of copper 

 from pyrites, of manganic oxkle used in the production of chlorine, the condensation of hydrochloric 

 acid, and many others are widely known. The wood pulp manufacture is an example of the conver- 

 sion to economic use of a long neglected raw material found abundantly all over our counti-y. But 

 the gigantic waste of the Dominion, as of other civilized countries, is that pertaining to the branch of 

 industry in which by ftir the largest number of oar people are engaged, viz., agriculture. Every 

 pound of any fertilizer a])]ilicd to a soil that does not reijuire it, or requires something else to make 

 it otlcctivc, is so much waste, and science has striven to show how such waste may bo avoided. 

 There is the waste still lunning on, on many farms, of neglecting to socui-e the pound of nitrogen, 

 worth sixteen cents, by the expenditure of a penny for plaster ; and theie is the waste to the country 

 at large, as yet in only a few cases economized, of enormous quantities of plant-food phosphates, com- 

 bined nitrogen, and potash salts — carried outof our towns and cities by their sewers. In regard to the 

 feeding elements of the fodiler sujyplied to live stock, more attention is given to the results obtained 

 by scientific experiment, for the marked differences in profit and loss do])ending upon them bring an 

 immediate pressure that is felt by the practical farmer. It is but a step fiom scientific cattle-feeding 

 to the suggestion otïei'cd that the human species is not unworthy of attention in this regard ; that, in 

 fact, experiments and ex|ierience in regard to human nutrition liave led to the growth of a new 

 science, previously a neglected spray of physiology. The waste to be utilized in this case is not of 

 more matter, but human energy, health, comfort and happiness. 



The work necessary for the exact determination of the chemical composition of our native 

 mineral products, while it involves patient and tedious manipulation, is often of a kind that does not 

 arrest attention, unless the substance involved is likely to yield immediately profitable results. It is of 

 the greatest importance to science, however, to secure such substantial permanent additions to know- 

 ledge as Mr. G. Cla-istian Hoffman's description and elaborate analyses of the specimens of Canadian 

 Native Platinum, sent from Gi-anite Creek by Mr. Elwyn, Deputy Pj ovincial Secretary of British 

 Columbia. Besides Platinum, the ore yielded, both its nonmagnetic and magnetic portions, Palla- 

 dium, Ehodium, Iridium, Cop])ei-, Iron, (Osmium being absent) ; in the non-magnetic portion there was 

 a percentage of ltj.62, in the magnetic of 10.51, of Osmiridium. 



