PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



cotian Institute of 



SESSION OK 1894-5. 



ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING. 

 Provincial Museum, Halifax, 12th November, 1894. 



PROF. GEORGE LAWSON, LL. D., PRESIDENT, in the chair. 

 The minutes of the last annual meeting were read and approved. 

 The PRESIDENT addressed the Institute as follows : 

 GENTLEMEN, We have assembled this evening as Members of the 



SCOTIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, for the performance of two distinct 

 duties, first, to close the session of 1893-94, which we now speak of as 

 past ; and secondly, to enter upon the operations of another year and lay 

 plans for the future. We are thus required, Janus-like, to put on two 

 faces, one looking backward, the other forward. The annual address 

 must be to a large extent a looking backward, for it is expected we shall 

 give some account of our stewardship. It is my place as president to 

 deliver the address on this occasion, because a year ago you thought fit 

 to appoint me to fill your most honorable office. I was conscious that 

 you might well have made a better choice, for I felt that the president 

 of a scientific body like this should be prepared to give time and energy 

 for more arduous labor than that of sitting in a chair at the monthly 

 meetings. I was not ignorant of the fact that the most active workers 

 are apt to entertain an abnegative spirit in regard to such things, to 

 shirk prominence and seek gratification in the quiet pursuit of know- 

 ledge ralher than the attainment of personal distinction. While this 



