180 OPENING ADDRESS—MACGREGOR. 
path had been. Now, had we, scattered over the Province, a large 
body of correspondents who would send’us descriptions of the 
appearance, positions, directions, &e., of such meteors as they 
might see, we might add greatly to our knowledge of this inter- 
esting subject. In the department of meteorology good work 
might be done by correspondents who would send us extracts 
froin the log-books of ships, descriptive of unusual meteorologi- 
cal phenomena. Had we funds to supply such correspondents 
with simple instruments we might get valuable data with regard 
to magnetic and tidal phenomena. But as the funds are wanting 
the collective investigation of phenomena requiring them is 
beyond our powers. 
In the departments of Natural Science there would seem to be 
many subjects in which collective investigation is both necessary 
and possible. I would suggest merely observations of the times 
of the flowering of plants, the migration of birds, the movements 
of fish, the first appearance of insects, a systematic record of 
which would seem to be comparatively easy to obtain and would 
certainly throw much light both on the life history of the plants 
and animals themselves and on the variation of our climate. 
It would seem to be eminently desirable, not only that our 
Institute should itseif undertake the superintendence of some 
forms of collective work of this kind, but also that it should 
induce other Canadian Socicties to co-operate with it, and per- 
haps prevail upon the Royal Society of Canada to collect and 
systematise the results which the local Societies might be able to 
supply year after year. 
Besides purely scientific work, a Society such as ours, which 
exists in a community as yet but slightly developed in the 
direction of scientific education, ought to do something towards 
stimulating outsiders to an interest in scientific work ; and not 
only ought to do so, in fact must do so, if it is to have a success- 
ful career. The stimulating in the non-scientific a desire to 
become scientific can be done only by making some or all of our 
meetings more popular and more attractive than the ordinary 
meeting of a Scientific Society usually is. Outsiders are accus- 
tomed to think of us as a lot of old fossils engaged in riding 
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