PROCEEDINGS FOR 1889. XXXI 



cles of the hiimau race. Unlike the historian and archœologist, the student of geology can look to 

 no aid from human i-ecords, his reseai'ches go beyond all classical literature; he can find no guide in 

 inscriptions, however ancient, which the hand of man has made. 



Geology, to some extent, ma^' be described as a new science, il was within the second decade of the 

 century that it became a recognized study, j'et with the aid of subsidiary scioncos it has already given 

 to us part of the story of the earth. The library of tlie geologist is found in the recesses of the rocks. 

 He deciphci's the writings which have therein been inscribed and which for unknown periods have 

 been secured from the process of decay. Necessarily his researches must be patient and laborious, 

 and it is only by the slow accumulation of facts that he is rewarded by bringing to liglit remains of 

 manifold organisms which in successive epochs have animated tlie globe countless centuries before 

 man was called into being. The geologist in his investigations approaches nearer to what we call the 

 beginning; he has revealed to him traces of the natural foi-ces which have operated in moulding the 

 earth to its present form. He is privileged to follow the mutations in the structure of the woi-ld, 

 which, if the element of time be not taken into account, are wholly inexplicable, and which can only 

 be accounted for by a slow and gradual development, by the continuity of forces exerted over periods, 

 compared with which the duration of human life on the globe as recorded in history can give but tiie 

 faintest conception. 



However much this science has advanced, and however greatly our knowledge has increased 

 during the last sixty years, we are made to feel tliat we are only on the threshold of greater revela- 

 tions. In the wide territory of the Dominion we have a boundless field for pursuing geological 

 research. The Canadian Geological Survey has done excellent work in many directions, not simply 

 in forming a vast accumulation of scientific facts, but in performing the great service of establishing 

 the immense value of some of our hidden mineral treasures. 



In the remaining Sections of the Society the subjects for consideration are not specially related 

 to the past; the sphere of their investigations have to some extent a bearing in the opposite direction. 

 I refer to the Section devoted to mathematics and phj-sical and chemical sciences. The aims and 

 hopes of this division of the Societ3M'ather lie in the future; not that we should forget our obligations 

 to those who have toiled in past years and to whose reseaches in science we mainly owe much which 

 is a striking feature in the daily life of modern civilization. 



These sciences cannot be sjjoken of as modern. We have but to mention the names of Pythagoras, 

 Aristotle, Archimedes, Ptolemy and others, to testify to the efforts of two thousand years back. The 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were made illustrious by men whose names will always be honor- 

 ably associated with science. "Without depreciating, however, the labors of the precursors of what we 

 all recognize as modern times, it may be said that it is the nineteenth century which has witnessed 

 the greatest triumphs in science. Indeed it is within little more than the last half-centurj- that 

 there has taken place a remarkable revolution in human affairs through the growth and influence of 

 the phy.sical sciences and the application of science to the daily life and the multifarious operations 

 of man. 



No one for a moment can suppose that science has exhausted every field of enr|uiry. .Judging 

 from the intellectual activity which everywhere jirevails, the thought forces itself upon us that much 

 will be discovered to a.stonish and bewilder the human family even in the comparatively shoi-t period 

 of another fifty years. Who can foretell what our children may witness and experience in the middle 

 of the twentieth century ? Some of us may yet live to see the extent of the influences exerted by 

 science in directions not hitherto dreamed of, and in fields which to many minds appear to set 

 scientific investigation at defiance. Even in the complex domain of politics the wise and practical 

 statesman may benefit his country by the application of scientific principles and methods to the 

 solution of difficult problems. 



Six years ago one of the most eminent of our colleagues, the late Dr. Todd, addressed the mem- 

 bers at length on the relations of this Society to the State. He dwelt upon the benefits which may be 



