ll PROCEEDINGS. 
spirit was to be respected, it did not afford a sufficient reason for my 
acceding to your request ; but, on the other hand, I knew that the com- 
pliment which you wished to pay me after thirty years’ membership of 
the Institute was sincere, and was actuated by the kindliest feelings. 
When, moreover, I was assured of substantial help from the resident 
vice-president and secretaries, it seemed that no other course was left me 
but to accept the position, to thank you all for the honor conferred upon 
me, and proceed to do what I could in discharge of the duties so 
undertaken. 
And now that my term of office is completed, I ask your attention 
to a brief review of the operations of the year. This will enable us 
the better to realize our position in the present, and to forecast the work 
that remains for the future. So fortified, we may make a fresh start. 
It is pleasing to be able to record that this year our membership has 
not been reduced either by death or resignation. Our list has been 
increased by the admission of seven ordinary and two corresponding 
members. 
During the session, seven ordinary monthly meetings for the reading 
of scientific papers were held. At these meetings twenty papers were 
read ; their subjects presented considerable variety. The session com- 
menced, in accordance with our laws, with the annual meeting of 
members of 8th November, when Dr. Martin Murphy, the retiring 
President, read an address, in which he reviewed the work of the bye- 
gone year. On the same evening an ordinary public meeting was 
constituted. The first paper read was by Prof. MacGregor, of Dalhousie 
College, on the isothermal and adiabatic expansion of gases ; its object 
was to show how certain important laws of the expansion of gases 
extensively employed in the study of heat engines, and usually demon- 
strated by the aid of the calculus, may be demonstrated by the use of 
elementary mathematical methods. The demonstration of these laws 
was thus brought within the comprehension of engineers who had not 
had the advantage of an extensive mathematical training. 
At the December meeting, Dr. Somers called attention to the native 
forms of juniper, giving details of his observation of the variations 
in habit of these plants, and exhibiting living specimens showing 
more particularly the upright arborescent or tree-forms of Juniperus 
communis, a species which, both in Europe and America, commonly 
appears on bare hills and sand-dunes as a depressed bush without any 
