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he Club, its operations were almost entirely confined to scientific work 

 in the more immediate vicinity of Ottawa. By this clause it can easily 

 be seen that the work of most of the active members of the Geological 

 Survey, whose fields ot research lay at points remote from this city, 

 was almost entirely excluded, and as a necessary consequence the 

 members of that stafi", who should constitute a very important factor in 

 the successful working of the society, to a very large extent lost interest 

 in the Club's work as a whole. By a unanimous vote at the last gen- 

 eral meeting this clause of the constitution was amended in oi'der that 

 the scope of the Club's work could be enlarged and embrace the read- 

 ing of papers, discussions and observations by any of its members on 

 subjects of scientific interest from any portion of the Dominion, and a 

 glance at the programme prepared for your entertainment and instruc- 

 tion during the coming winter will show you at once the direct 

 practical outcome of this modification of the Club's policy, since it will 

 there be seen that no less than six papers, all of which promise to be of 

 great interest, and comprising localities which extend from Labrador 

 on the east to the Arctic Circle and the great Yukon Country on the 

 west and north, will be read by members of the Geological and Natural 

 History Survey of Canada, and it may be said here that only the lack 

 of time or opportunity at our disposal has prevented the obtaining of 

 others of equal interest and importance from the same source. 



With, therefore, such an array of facts as we have just stated, and 

 with so attractive a programme as we are now enabled to present to 

 the members of the institution and to the general public as well, it is 

 most confidently anticipated that much of the indifierence, or lack of 

 interest, to use a milder term, which has apparently been evinced by 

 many members in the working of the society, will now di-appear. The 

 programme of papers and lectures for our present course is of such 

 interest and importance as in any other town or city would attract so 

 great an audience that our nresent room would be inadequate for their 

 accommodation, and I can but feel, and so feeling, strive to impress 

 upon every member of the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club, the great 

 desirability of placing the society of which we are all members ia so 

 distinguished a position that every one of us can point with gratification 



