PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 1X 
although the government was liberal in providing the means for obtain- 
ing what money could purchase, and those who were engaged in carrying 
out the work felt especially the need of scientific help in placing the 
products of the country before the nations of Europe. Thus was sug- 
gested the great want of some permanent organization to foster the 
scientific spirit in Nova Scotia. A society had been recently formed for 
the reading of literary papers. Some of the more active members were 
now engrossed with the arrangements for the Nova Scotian exhibit in 
London, and the literary society readily gave place to an organization of 
a scientific kind under the name of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural 
Science. The inaugural address was delivered by Puinie Carteret 
Hiut, D.C. L., President, who died rather suddenly at Tunbridge Wells 
in September last, and to whose memory there is an appreciative notice 
in the last issued number of the King’s College Record. As mayor of 
the city, provincial secretary and premier of the Province, and in other 
important positions, he took an active part in civic and Provincial affairs, 
He afterwards removed to England, and during his residence there had 
been engaged in religious and philanthropic work, occasionally also con- 
tributing to the literary journals. He is pleasantly remembered by many 
citizens of Halifax as a genial, benevolent, scholarly, Christian gentleman. 
In his inaugural address, at the first meeting of the Institute, Dr. 
Hill pointed out that however great the ardor or untiring the efforts of 
individual laborers in science might be, their isolated labors would really 
tend but little to enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge. Com- 
munication with each other, every laborer in the field casting his contri- 
bution into a common receptacle, whence all could freely draw, could 
alone give those results of individual effort their highest value. ‘It is 
then,” he said, “to aid in this important work, and to afford a well 
constructed and organized channel for the contributions to the general 
stock of knowledge of those among ourselves who are interested in the 
fascinating fields embraced in the term ‘ natural science,’ that the Nova 
Scotian Institute has been established. Should our hopes not be disap- 
pointed, we look forward to the time when our ‘ Transactions’ shall be 
exchanged with older and more important institutions, and any new and 
well authenticated fact, having passed the ordeal of our own Jocal organi- 
zation, shall be transmitted to the great centres of science, and become 
the property of the whole world. * * The object of the Institution 
is to stimulate effort, and to aid and encourage the student by giving a 
recognized position and permanency to the results of his labors. If we 
