oe 
il REPORT OF DELEGATE TO ROYAL SOCIETY. 
occurred to mar the pleasure of the excursion, or is likely to 
occur on any similar occasion, so far at least as careful manage- 
ment of the Intercolonial is implicated. 
Professor Allison, Superintendent of Education, and delegate 
of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, and Professor MacGregor, 
of Dalhousie College, a member of the Royal Society, and gf our 
Institute, were fellow travellers with myself from Halifax, and 
a delegate from New Brunswick, on the same errand, met us at 
Moncton. There was very little railway detention at any of the 
stations, and we realized a decided improvement since former 
visits in this direction, at the stations where provision and 
attendance are furnished,* the quantity and quality of which 
minister so largely to the comfort and convenience of Jocomotion. 
There is a marked difference in the length and severity of the 
winter between the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia and those 
parts of New Brunswick and Quebec through which we had now 
to pass. We left no snow behind us, either at Halifax or Truro, 
and cultivation was fairly progressive, onward and past Amherst 
to Moncton. But although this was weil toward the end of May, 
the snow had not entirely disappeared further along the route, 
and very few signs of progressive vegetation were to be seen_ 
On the hills around, here and there, and often in secluded places 
on the railway level, were large patches of snow, first seen at 
Coal Branch, N. B., most frequent from Campbellton on the 
Restigouche, and onward on the Metapedia, an affluent of the 
Restigouche, which, spreading into a large lake-like expanse, still 
retained its winter covering of ice, although evidently on the 
point of breaking up. The ice was all gone on our return, eight 
days later. j 
We get no more than a passing elimpse of the small townships, 
or villages, which follow each other in rapid succession on the 
railway route by the lower St. Lawrence, on to Chaudiere June- 
tion, near to Point Levi. Rimouski, a summer port of the Allan 
steamship line, is apparently the largest and most important. 
What can be seen by the railway traveller does not exhibit 
signs of any modern improvement except the railway itself. The 
* Except at Chaudiere Junction. 
