A PAPER—BY WM. GOSSIP. 157 
scientific associations of British America, although but little more 
than twenty years in existence. Short, however, as its time has 
been, it may be said so tar to have done good service. 
The Institute originated with a few gentlemen who believed 
that in a Province which contained vast mineral resources, and 
further was an untrodden field in other branches of natural 
science, there would be found men of culture and experience who 
would gladly lend their aid to develop them into successful 
activity. After several meetings in the office of Mr. Robert 
Haliburton (well known in this city, 2. e., Ottawa) the Institute 
was organized and the officers appointed. This was in January, 
1863. Our first President was Mr. J. Matthew Jones, F. L.S., 
an English gentiemen who had acquired some distinction as a 
naturalist. I became its first Secretary. The Provincial Govern- 
ment gave us the use in the Province Building of the only spare 
room at their disposal. The tirst or second meeting (I forget 
which) was attended by His Excellency the Earl of Mulgrave, 
Lt.-Governor of the Province, and since Governor of Queensland, 
and more recently has succeeded to the hereditary title of Lord 
Normandy. He made an excellent speech, commendatory and 
congratulatory of the enterprise, which I regret to state has not 
been recorded in our Transactions. The inaugural address was 
delivered by P. C. Hill, Esq., more recently the Premier of the 
Nova Scotian Assembly. In the first volume of our transactions, 
embracing a period of four years, will be found papers on the 
Provincial zoology, geology, mineralogy, ichthyology, gold fields, 
ethnology, conchology, lepidoptera, meteorology, and other bran- 
ches of science, to which I need not more particularly allude. 
Coming froin a country so little known as Nova Scotia then was, 
this: volume seems to have commanded considerable attention, 
and applications from scientitic societies abroad were frequent 
for exchanges with their own publications, and soliciting corres- 
pondence. These were responded to so far as we were able 
until now most of the earlier volumes of our Transactions have 
been expended. We thus early realized the anticipations in the 
inaugural address of Mr. Hill, who, after some preliminary 
remarks on the value of well organized over individual efforts, 
