ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 107 
must soon be called into action, if we would play our part as an 
integral portion of British America. There isenough of talent and 
ability amonest ourselves to take secondary action in their devel- 
opment, although neither speculation nor capital at present 
appears very eager to make them available. It certainly does 
seem strange, that we cannot even point to the existence of a 
cotton-mill, with a chief city which is the Atlantic entrepot of a 
Dominion stretching from Halifax to the shores of the Pacific, 
possessing as we do railway communication for a long distance 
inland, and, as we shall doin a ee years, from hence 4 to British 
Columbia, to say nothing of the limitless coal and iron in Nova 
Scotia, and a cotton- -erowing country within twenty days’ sail of 
our chief port. A reason may be found on the part of our own peo- 
ple in the want of capital for so expensive and important an under- 
taking, and ignorance of its management. But that our unsurpass- 
ed geographical position, and the acknowledged decadence of Brit- 
ish manufactures, through rivalry of foreigners, should not have 
turned the attention of the cotton lords of England to Nova 
Scotia, from whence to supply the growing Dominion, and to 
carry the war into the enemy’s territory, is somethi ning not easily 
understood. I may be pardoned this allusion. It is not so far 
beyond the domain of natural science, involving as it does many 
of its branches, that our wishes and hopes may ‘not centre in such 
an enterprise. 
Of our other industries connected with natural science, | 
will speak briefly. Coal is inexhaustible, and I hope to see the 
day when cotton and sugar and iron, and other manufactories at 
home, shall preclude the necessity of looking fora market abroad 
for this valuable mineval; and when our own Dominion, the 
western part of it especially, shall be more ready to buy from us 
than we to sell to them. This is the true solution of the 
problem of coal mining asa source of national wealth. The time 
will surely arrive, and we hope is not far distant, whoever may 
live to witness it. Strange that even now our interests should 
be diverse, or not to be reconciled, and that we cannot work to- 
gether as an united people. 
Tron is as inexhaustible as coal, and more valuable. One blast 
furnace is at work for the reduction of its ores, requiring scienti- 
fic knowledge and practical industry and economy to sustain it, 
and these will no doubt multiply as markets are realized and 
demand increases. 
The rocks of the Atlantic coast line, from Canso to Yarmouth, 
and for a considerable breadth inland, are prolific in gold, which, 
