HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF INSTITUTE. PIERS. Ixvii 



finally on 13th December, 1909, it began to meet in the Tech- 

 nical College. 



One of the pleasant features of the early years of the 

 Institute were the field-days which were held in the summer. 

 Although the bye-laws called for four annually, it was not 

 found possible to have so many. The first was held on llth 

 June, 1864, at French Village, St. Margaret's Bay, to investi- 

 gate some Indian shell-heaps, and on 21st of the following 

 September one took place at Cole Harbour for the same 

 purpose. In 1865 the members drove to the Waverley gold 

 mines on 1st July; and on 26th June of the next year, a pil- 

 grimage was made to the grave of Titus Smith in the woods 

 near Dutch Village, where an interesting paper was read on 

 that naturalist's life and work, and the president's museum 

 at "Ashburn" was also inspected. From then till 1870 no 

 excursions took place, although it was announced that one 

 would be held on 28th June of the last-mentioned year in 

 the vicinity of St. Margaret's Bay to explore shell-mounds 

 there. On 21st June, 1871, a field-day took place at the 

 Montagu gold mines, and another on 24th August, 1876, at 

 Grand Lake. The last ones took place on 3rd and 24th 

 August, 1878, at Point Pleasant and York Redoubt respective- 

 ly. Since then they have been often proposed, but never 

 carried out. They were enjoyed at the time, and 

 gave members an opportunity of becoming acquainted with 

 natural history in the field, under the guidance of competent 

 leaders. They are now, at least, unpopular, perhaps be- 

 cause of the greater stress of present-day business life. Other 

 societies are meeting with similar troubles in Nova Scotia; 

 although in Ottawa and Montreal, field excursions are still 

 kept up, as well as in England. 



William Gossip, writing thirty-six years ago (October, 

 1876), says, "At the formation of the Institute it was sup- 

 posed that these excursions would be generally taken ad- 

 vantage of, as pleasing and popular features of our proceedings. 



