PEOCEEDINi;S FOE 1894. LI H 



the solution of various important questions which Ho before us in connection with them. Science is 

 but another and a convenient name for oiganized Icnowledge, and as such it has entered so largely 

 into every branch of human eiîbrt, that when, at the present time, any one attempts to pose as a 

 "practical " in contradistinction to a scientific worker, he may bo known to be a relic of the past age, 

 in which much was done by rule of thumb and without any real knowledge of the principles involved. 

 Keithcr can we safely make any division between what is sometimes called "practical " or "applied" 

 science and science in general, for the knowledge must be gained before it can be applied, and it is 

 scarcely yet possible to bar anj' avenue of research with a placard of " no thoroughfare," as an assur- 

 ance that it cannot lead to any material useful end. 



At the same time, there are certain directions in which investigation is very closely wedded to 

 results of immediate and tangible value, and it is practically in such directions that the State may 

 reasonably be expected to exercise its activity. But the line should not be too rigorously drawn, for 

 should the investigator for a time stray into some by-path of research, because of his individual 

 interest in his work, it is not improbable that he may return from his excursion with some unexpected 

 discovery, which may prove to have important bearings on the problems of every-day life. Take, for 

 example, the study of Palaeontology which, relating as it does, to extinct forms of life, might appear 

 to be a branch of science wholly removed from any practical object, however interesting it may be to 

 disinter and to reconstruct these remarkable forms. But we all know that this study has become an 

 indispensable one as an aid to the classification of the rock formations and thus to the search for the 

 useful minerals which some of these contain. This is more particularly the case perhaps in the 

 instance of coal beds, which are usually confined in each region to some set of strata, which may be 

 defined with precision only b\' the aid of the evidence afforded by fossil remains. 



Before going further and entering into the principal subject of my remarks, I should make it 

 clearly understood that in endeavouring to give some account of the several agencies of scientific 

 work in Canada, it is my purpose to refer to those only which may be considered as engaged in 

 widening the borders of knowledge by means of original research, tending more or less directly to 

 the development of our natural resources and advantages. Thus the very numerous matters in which 

 science has already been enlisted in every-day service of a routine character will not be alluded to, 

 neither is it intended to allude to the numerous educational institutions in which a scientific training 

 is given ; nor is it possible, within the limits by which I must be bounded, to note the results which 

 have accrued from the individual labours of scientific workers throughout the country, though in 

 many cases these have been of the most creditable and important character. 



The Geological Survey ' 



may be said to be the senior or doyen among the scientific efforts of the Canadian (lovernment, for 

 although the Magnetic Observatory had been established some years earlier in Toronto, it did not 

 till long afterwards come under the control of the government of Canada. 



The first effort made toward the establishment of a Geological Survey in Canada, appears in a 

 petition addressed to the House of Assembly of Upper Canada in 1832, by Dr. John Eao._ Nothing, 

 however, came of this or of sevei-al other attempts of the same kind, till in the first united Parliament 

 of Upper and Lower Canada, in 1841, the Natural History Society of Montreal and the Historical 

 Society of Quebec joined in urging the matter upon the government, with the result that the modest 

 sum of £1,500 sterling was granted for the purpose of beginning such a survey. 



The selection of a geologist was referred to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, by Sir Charles 

 Bagot, the governor, and on the recommendation of the best known geologists of the day in England, 

 Logan, afterwards so well known as Sir William Logan, was appointed. Born in Montreal in IIOS, 

 he was at the time forty-four years of age, and his admirable work in the survey of the South Wales 



' Most of the notes here given relating to the early history of the Geological Survey are derived from Dr. B. J. 



Harrington's life of Sir William Logan, Montreal, 18S3. 



