8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



Gen. Sir Henry) Lefroy, at the time president of the Institute, was 

 recalled, and the removal of the instruments had, I believe, already 

 been begun, when the Council of the Canadian Institute came for- 

 ward and represented to the Canadian Government the great loss 

 which the country would sustain by the discontinuance of this long 

 established observing station, urging its retention as a pi-ovincial 

 institution, the purchase of such instruments as had not already been 

 removed and of additional apparatus, and the extension of the station 

 for meteorological purposes. All this was acceded to by the Govern- 

 ment of the day, and the outgrowth of it is our present efficient 

 Observatory in the Queen's Park. 



2. Tn 1856, when the discontinuance of the Geological survey was 

 contemplated, the Institute again memorialized the Government for 

 its continuance as a permanent organization, and again its advice 

 was not only listened to with respect, but followed in full. 



3. In the following year, 1857, Professor Kingston presented 

 before the Institute a scheme for utilizing the telegraph system of 

 the country for the foretelling of storms, which was the foreshadowing 

 of the present signal service. The Institute gave instant adhesion 

 and support to his scheme by urging its adoption upon the Govern- 

 ment, and it was adopted. With its present woi'king and value 

 every reader of the morning papers is familiar. 



4. In the same year the Institute, with the same success, urged 

 upon the Government the establishment of the Astronomical Obser- 

 vatory at Quebec, thus showing that it was truly Canadian, and 

 watchful of the interests of science in every part of the country. 



5. Early in the year 1862, the Institute urged upon the Govern- 

 ment a proper representation of Canada at the Great Exhibition of 

 that year, and again with success. 



6. The recent memoirs of Mr. Sandford Fleming on the adoption 

 of a system of uniform time were not merely allowed to repose in the 

 receptacle of the Journal, but the Institute took immediate steps ta 

 bring this matter, through the medium of our then Gove rnoz'- General, 

 the Mai-quis of Lome, and the (Canadian and Imperial authorities^ 

 before the notice of the various Governments of Eui'ope and America, 

 and the principal learned societies in those countries. The practical 

 value and importance of Mr. Fleming's suggestions were at once 

 recognized in many quarters. Thus, in Spain, the officer who had 



