788 report — 1884. 



there. A recent German writer, Dr. Hahn, has enumerated ninety-six more or less 

 extensive tracts known to be rising or sinking. We owe to Mr. R. A. Peacock the 

 accumulation of abundant evidence that the island of Jersey had no existence in 

 Ptolemy's time, and probably was not wholly cat off from the continent before the 

 fourth or fifth century. Mr. A. Howarth has collected similar proofs as to the 

 Arctic regions ; and every fresh discovery adds to the number. Thus the gallant, 

 ill-fated De Long, a name not to be mentioned without homage to heroic courage and 

 almost superhuman endurance, found evidence that Bennett Island has risen a 

 hundred feet in quite recent times. Nordeuskiold found the remains of whales, 

 evidently killed by the early Dutch fishers, on elevated terraces of Martin's Island. 

 The recent conclusion of Professor Hull, that the land between Suez and the Bitter 

 Lakes has risen since the Exodus, throws fresh light on the Mosaic account of that 

 great event ; and to go still further south, we learn from the Indian survey that it 

 is ' almost certain ' that the mean sea level at Madras is a foot lower, i.e., the land 

 a foot higher, than it was sixty years ago. If I do not refer to the changes on the 

 west side of Hudson's Bay, for a distance of at least six hundred miles, it is only 

 because I presume that the researches of Dr. Robert Bell are too well known here 

 to require it. Any of my hearers who may have visited Bermuda are aware that 

 so gently has that island subsided, that great hangings of stalactite, unbroken, may 

 be found dipping many feet into the sea, or at all events, into salt-water pools 

 standing at the same level, and we have no reason to suppose the sinking to have 

 come to an end. We learn from the Chinese annals that the so-called Hot Lake 

 Issyk-kul, of Turkistan, was formed by some convulsion of nature about 160 years 

 ago, 1 and there seems no good reason to reject the Japanese legend that Fusiyama 

 itself was suddenly thrown up in the third century before our era (b.c. 286). 

 These are but illustrations of the assertion I began with, that geography and 

 geology are very nearly connected, and it would be equally easy to show on how 

 many points we touch the domain of botany and natural history. The flight of 

 birds has often guided navigators to undiscovered lands. Nordenskiold went so far 

 as to infer the existence of ' vast tracts, with high mountains, with valleys filled 

 with glaciers, and with precipitous peaks ' between Wrangel Land and the 

 American shores of the Polar Sea, from no other sign than the multitudes of birds 

 winging their way northward in the spring of 1 879, from the ' Vega's ' winter 

 quarters. The walrus hunters of Spitsbergen drew the same conclusion in a 

 previous voyage from the flight of birds towards the Pole from the European side. 

 Certainly no traveller in the more northern latitudes of this continent in the 

 autumn can fail to reflect on the ceaseless circulation of the tide of life in the 

 beautiful harmony of nature, when he finds that he can scarcely raise his eyes from 

 his book at any moment, or direct them to any quarter of the heavens, without 

 seeing countless numbers of wild fowl, guided by unerring instinct, directing their 

 timely flight towards the milder climates of the South. 



4. To address you on the subject of geography, and omit mention of the pro- 

 gress made within these very few years in our knowledge of the geography of this 

 Dominion, might indeed appear an unaccountable, if not an unpardonable oversight ; 

 nevertheless, I propose to touch upon it but briefly, for two reasons : first, I said 

 nearly all I have to say upon a similar occasion four years ago ; secondly and 

 chiefly, because I hope that some of those adventurous and scientific travellers who 

 have been engaged in pushing the explorations of the Geological Survey and of the 

 Canada Pacific Railway into unknown regions, will have reserved some communi- 

 cations for this Section. I cannot, however, refrain from alluding to that remark- 

 able discovery recently communicated to the Geographical Society of Quebec by 

 M. N. A. Comeau, of which we shall, I hope, hear fuller particulars from Pro- 

 fessor Laflamme. I mean the extent and importance of Lake Mistassini. That it 

 should be left to this day to discover in no very remote part of the north-east a 

 lake rivalling Lake Ontario, if not Lake Superior, in magnitude, is a pleasant ex- 

 ample of the surprises geography has in store for its votaries. Canada comprises 

 within its limits two spots of a physical interest not surpassed by any others on the 

 globe. I mean the pole of vertical magnetic attraction, commonly called the mag- 



1 Proc. R. G. S. vol. xviii. p. 250. 



