PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. IX 



although the government was liberal in providing the means for obtain- 

 ing what money could purchase, and those who were engaged in carrying 

 out the work felt especially the need of scientilic help in placing the 

 products of the country before the nations of Europe. Thus was sug- 

 gested the great want of some permanent organization to foster the 

 scientific spirit in Nova Scotia. A society had been recently formed for 

 the reading of literary papers. Home of the more active members were 

 now engrossed with the arrangements for the Nova Scotian exhibit in 

 London, and the literary society readily gave place to an organization of 

 a scientific kind under the name of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural 

 Science. The inaugural address was delivered by PHILIP CARTERET 

 HILL, D. C. L., President, who died rather suddenly at Tunbridge Wells 

 in September last, and to whose memory theie is an appreciative notice 

 in the last issued number of the King's College Record. As mayor of 

 the city, provincial secretary and premier of the Province, and in other 

 important positions, he took an active part in civic and Provincial affairs. 

 He afterwards removed to England, and during his residence there had 

 been engaged in religious and philanthropic work, occasionally also con- 

 tributing to the literary journals. He is pleasantly remembered by many 

 citizens of Halifax as a genial, benevolent, scholarly, Christian gentleman. 

 In his inaugural address, at the first meeting of the Institute, Dr. 

 Hill pointed out that however great the ardor or untiring the efforts of 

 individual laborers in science might be, their isolated labors would really 

 tend but little to enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge. Com- 

 munication with each other, every laborer in the field casting his contri- 

 bution into a common receptacle, whence all could freely draw, could 

 alone give those results of individual effort their highest value. " It is 

 then," he said, " to aid in this important work, and to afford a well 

 constructed and organized channel for the contributions to the general 

 stock of knowledge of those among ourselves who are interested in the 

 fascinating fields embraced in the term ' natural science,' that the Nova 

 Scotian Institute has been established. Should our hopes not be disap- 

 pointed, we look forward to the time when our ' Transactions ' shall be 

 exchanged with older and more important institutions, and any new and 

 well authenticated fact, having passed the ordeal of our own local organi- 

 zation, shall be transmitted to the great centres of science, and become 

 the property of the whole world. * * The object of the Institution 

 is to stimulate effort, and to aid and encourage the student by giving a 

 recognized position and permanency to the results of his labors. If we 



