IV PROCEEDINGS. 



inaugurated for increasing the membership and consequently the 

 revenue of the Institute, the next step should be to consider the 

 advisability and possibility of providing a home for our society. 

 From the first the provincial government gave the use of the only 

 spare room at its disposal, and we are still indebted to the 

 generosity of the government for a place in which to hold our 

 meetings, and also a place wherein to keep our valuable library. 



Publication. We are handicapped by our limited purse and 

 other conditions, so that it would be impossible to expend a larger 

 sum at present on the publication of papers. A great effort should 

 be made, however, to bring this work up to date. We should then 

 consider the advisability of printing before they are read, all 

 papers of general interest or special importance. If an advance- 

 proof of such papers could be sent out some time before the meeting 

 at which they are to be read, it would doubtless result in freer and 

 much more valuable discussion and larger attendance at such 

 meetings. Even under our present system the discussion is often 

 second in value only to the paper itself. 



Research work. The practical value of reseach work is being 

 impressed upon the public, and the business portion of the public 

 is becoming interested more and more in the results of such work. 



An address on a strictly scientific subject is not often of par- 

 ticular interest except to those who are engaged in the department 

 of science discussed. The superficial observer who sees the oak 

 but forgets the acorn, is likely to ascribe the great material 

 advances of recent times wholly to scientific knowledge and rare 

 ingenuity, and to consider, the great inventors and the great cap- 

 tains of industry as the most important agents in bringing about 

 the modern era. No other agent, however, has been of greater 

 influence in making the mechanical evolution of the latter part of 

 the last century possible than the great scientific investigators 

 whose forceful intellect opened the way to secrets previously hidden 

 from men. 



Nature turns a forbidding face to those who pay her court with 

 the hope of gain, and is responsive only to those suitors whose love 

 is for herself alone. It is impossible to know what application 



