Ixxiv PROCEEDINGS. 



All of these influences have undoubtedly worked to the 

 detriment of the Nova Scotian Institute. 



A condition of affairs arose in 1901 which it was thought 

 might bring good results. Members of the Institute in the 

 university town of Wolfville, under the enthusiastic leader- 

 ship of Prof. Haycock and other members of the college staff, 

 expressed a desire to form a sub-organization. It was 

 thought to be a good time to form affiliated branches through- 

 out the province which would be of mutual benefit to all 

 concerned. 



Accordingly on 28th May, 1901, the KING'S COUNTY 

 BRANCH OF THE INSTITUTE was organized at Wolfville, with 

 Prof. Haycock as president. Associate members were per- 

 mitted to join the branch for a nominal fee of twenty-five 

 cents a year. It was very successful at first, held four 

 annual sessions and read or discussed papers of interest, but 

 ceased to exist after the session of 1903-4. 



The summer of 1901 saw the departure of Dr. MacGregor 

 for Edinburgh University to take the chair of natural philo- 

 sophy there, and the Institute joined with others in a farewell 

 dinner to the man who had done more than yeoman service 

 for our society. While appreciating and delighting in the 

 well-deserved honour that had thus come to one of the pro- 

 vince's most talented sons and one of our fellow members, 

 the whole society could not but deeply feel his loss. Possibly 

 I may be pardoned for expressing my own humble opinion 

 that his is the keenest intellect that Nova Scotia has pro- 

 duced.* 



I shall not proceed further with a general narrative, as 

 the past decade is clear in all of our minds, but will give a few 

 particulars of the growth of the library and of the museum, 

 and then concise sketches of the presidents and other men 

 foremost in the society's affairs. In respect to the biograph- 

 ical notes, Sidney Lee, editor of the " Dictionary of National 



*The sudden death of Prof. J. G. MacGregor. D. Sc . LL D.: F. R. S.; F.R.S.E., F.R.S.C., 

 at the age of sixty-one, took place at Edinburgh in May, 1913, a few months after the prepara- 

 tion of this paper. 



