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be found accounts of explorations and experiments wliich are of great interest to 

 scientific men. 



In connection witb St. Joseph's College there is a Geological Society and 

 well arranged museum. The Institut Cauadien has its science classes, and of 

 course so do also the Normal School and Collegiate Institute. In short, there is 

 no excuse at all for anyone in Ottawa to plead ignorance on scientific subjects. 

 Let us then strive to make the most of our opportunitie?, and do our utmost to 

 lender our Club of the greatest pos.sible usefulness. Let us proclaim by our 

 works that we wish to help on the general cause of science. Let each of us 

 strive to cultivate his faculty of observation, so that nothing of interest escapes 

 our notice. The notebook should be the naturalists' constant companion, the 

 time of the appearance and departure of every bird and insect should lie noted, 

 the occurrence of every rare animal, fish, or shell, the discovery of every mineral 

 or interesting fossil remain — all of these should be recorded. 



We must not, however, content ourselves with only making observation and 

 collecting facts. This is not science. Science is organized knowledge. Our 

 observations, therefore, must be arranged, and recorded systematically in the 

 clearest possible way, for our own use and for the use of others. The literature of 

 science, especially periodical literature, has become so powerful and voluminous 

 that without it progress is impossible to the student ; this renders it necessary 

 that all facts should be recorded in as concise and exact a manner as possible. 

 No one can contemplate the progress of physical .science during the past century 

 without feeling that a new era Las begun in the history of man. The powers of 

 <;he human mind are extending their grasp and rising to a state of higher activity. 

 The nature and order of material things are exhaustively investigated from the 

 infinitely great to the infinitely small. The causes and eff"ects of things are 

 sought out most persistently. Physical science scans alike the distant orb from 

 which we receive light and heat and also the imponderable and invisible particle, 

 and demands from insentient matter the laws of its being. Scientific inquirers 

 were doubtless at all times thus engaged ; but formerly there was too much 

 scope given to the imagination and too little observation and experiment. 

 Systems were built up on arguments derived from the probable rather than the 

 actual and proved. The strictness of logical conclusions was held to be of more 

 account than honest labour in ascertaining the correctness of the data on which 

 the conclusions were built. This, however, is not the case to-day. No assertion 

 in science remains long unchallenged, and the statements of philosophers are 

 submitted to every ordeal, and their conclusions tested by every criticism which 

 honesty, acumen or fierce partizanship can apply. One of the great characteristics 

 ef the sc'entific activity of the day is its practical tendency. The public expects 

 fiom its thinkers and experimentalists not clever paradoxes and ingenious puzzles 

 but plain methods of grappling with stern necessities — discoveries by means of 



