Field Day and Excursion. 6.5 



FIELD DAY AND EXCURSION TO CHELSEA, QUE. 



The first general excursion or field of the Club was held on 

 Saturday, 23rd May, 1896, when Chelsea and the beautiful dis- 

 trict thereabout were visited. 



Close upon two hundred excursionists left the city via the 

 Ottawa & Gatineau Valley Railway. The party was composed 

 chiefly of members of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club, but 

 there were present also in goodly numbers, students of the Pro- 

 vincial Normal (School, Ottawa ; besides members of the Ottawa 

 Camera Club and various friends of these institutions. 



Among those present were noticed : Dr. James Fletcher, 

 Dr. R. W. Ells, F. T. Shutt, Esq., H. B. Small, Esq., R. B. 

 Whyte, Esq., W. J. Wilson, Esq., D. B. Dowling, E.sq., M. 

 O'Brien, Esq., W. C. Bowles, Esq., R. xA.. A. Johnston, Esq., S. B- 

 Sinclair, Esq., Miss Marion Whyte, Miss G. Harmer, Mrs. R. W. 

 Cowan, and many others. 



The weather was all that could be desired and everything 

 went off very well. On alighting at the station in Chelsea — on 

 the very edge of the Laurentide Hills — the President. Mr. F. T. 

 Shutt, addressed the party and pointed out the various places of 

 interest in the neighbourhood, intimating at the same time the 

 names of those gentlemen who were present to pilot the various 

 sections of the Club. The attractive and bewitching appearance 

 of the woods afforded to the botanists a fine field for research, 

 soon the scene of great activity. The geologists followed the 

 railwa}^ track and examined the cuttings along the way in a 

 westerly direction, devoting particular attention to the Pleisto- 

 cene clays, gravels and sands occurring there. 



The valley of the Gatineau is particularly wild and enchant- 

 ing in the month of May. The swollen waters were busily 

 carrying upon their bosom the wealth of the forests of the north, 

 and one after another in rapid succession the logs could be seen 

 gliding along smoothly, now in a placid basin, where the delicate 

 green tracery of the foliage was beautifully mirrorred — then, 



