_-.* 
4 REPORT—1885. 
together by the iron bands of railways from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 
the Pacific Ocean, so that the fertile lands of Ontario, Manitoba, Columbia, — 
and the North-Western Territories will soon be available to the world. 
Still practical science has much to accomplish. England and France, 
with only one-fifth the fertile area of Canada, support 80 millions of 
people, while Canada has a population not exceeding 5 millions. 
A less far-seeing people than the Canadians might have invited the 
applied science which they so much require. But they knew that with- 
out science there are noapplications. They no doubt felt with Emerson— 
And what if Trade sow cities 
Like shells along the shore, 
And thatch with towns the prairie broad 
With railways ironed o’er ; 
They are but sailing foam-bells 
Along Thought’s causing stream, 
And take their shape and sun-colour 
From him that sends the dream. 
So it was with a far-reaching foresight that the Canadian Government 
invited the British Association for the Advancement of Science to meet 
in Montreal. The inhabitants of Canada received us with open arms, 
and the science of the Dominion and that of the United Kingdom were 
welded. We found in Canada, as we had every reason to expect, men of — 
manly and self-reliant character who loved not less than we did the old 
home from which they had come. Among them is the same healthi- 
ness of political and moral life, with the same love of truth which dis-_ 
tinguishes the English people. Our great men are their great men; our 
Shakspeare, Milton, and Burns belong to them as much as to ourselves; 
our Newton, Dalton, Faraday, and Darwin are their men of science as 
much as they are ours. Thus a common possession and mutual sympathy 
made the meeting in Canada a successful effort to stimulate the progress 
of science, while it established, at the same time, the principle that all 
people of British origin—and I would fain include our cousins in the 
United States—possess a common interest in the intellectual glories of 
their race, and ought, in science at least, to constitute part and parcel of — 
a common empire, whose heart may beat in the small islands of the 
Northern seas, but whose blood circulates in all her limbs, carrying” 
warmth to them and bringing back vigour to us. Nothing can be more 
cheering to our Association than to know that many of the young com- 
munities of English-speaking people all over the globe—in India, China, 
Japan, the Straits, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape—have 
founded scientific societies in order to promote the growth of scientific 
research. No doubt science, which is only a form of truth, is one in all 
lands, but still its unity of purpose and fulfilment received an important 
practical expression by our visit to Canada. This community of science 
will be continued by the fact that we have invited Sir William Dawson, 
of Montreal, to be our next President at Birmingham. 
