PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. XX XIk 
Here let me call your attention to the most valuable and self- 
sacrificing labors of Dr. MacGregor and Mr. Maynard Bowman in 
connection with the library of this Institute. A few years ago, when 
they began work upon it, it consisted of a small number of unclassified 
reports from secieties in various parts of the world. It now includes a 
large number of serial publications by scientific societies and other insti- 
tutions, and numbers about 1,500 bound volumes with about as many 
more unbound. These haee been placed in a room temporarily pro- 
vided by Dalhousie College, and so arranged that any one desirous of 
consulting any volume would be able to find it without the assistance of 
the librarian. 
The work of bringing order out of the confusion that existed at 
first, the cataloguing and labelling of so many books, searching and 
sending abroad for missing numbers, was an immense labor, which if 
performed by a paid expert would have cost several hundred, not less, 
perhaps, than two thousand dollars. 
But in addition to all this, the addresses of other societies had to 
be searched and copies of our Transactions sent abroad to about 700 
societies in all, by which means the number of valuable publications 
received each year was more than doubled. Surely when these two 
gentlemen have done so much, we may expect our provincial government 
to supplement their efforts by the addition to this library each year of a 
few hundred treatises. Then would it not be better that the library 
thus enlarged should be taken over by the government, properly housed 
and managed, and made free to the public ? 
Nor must I forget to say that the thanks of this Institute are due 
to the Governors of Dalhousie College for the use of a room at a time 
when our library became so large that it could no longer be kept in the 
place which it formerly occupied. 
“s 
science in our midst. A collection of dusty, unlabelled, badly arranged 
specimens does not amount to much and scarcely justifies the expense. 
Such a museum is the deadest of all dead things. 
To be practically useful a museum requires a large, well-lighted, 
readily accessible room. It should primarily contain typical specimens 
of the most important natural bodies, arranged according to their 
chemical or organic affinities, so that the student may learn from them 
at a glance something of their relationship and the laws of nature 
2. A properly conducted museum would do much to popularize 
