TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 747 



Section G.— MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 

 Peesident of the Section — G. F. Deacon, M.Inst.C.E. 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 19. 

 Tlie President delivered the following address: — 



In this ever-memorable year of the Victorian Age, it is not unnatural that 

 anyone called to fill the chair I occupy to-day should experience a sense of oppres- 

 sion, when contemplating the fruits of mechanical science during the last sixty 

 years, and the tremendous vista, fading in the distance to a dream, of the fruits it 

 is destined to produce before such another period shall have passed away. 



There would be no possibihty, in the time at my disposal, even if I were 

 cjualified to attempt it, of adequately reviewing the past ; and however fascinating 

 the thought may be, it would ill become my office to venture far along the vista 

 before us, lest a too airy imagination shoidd break the bonds of that knowledge 

 and that truth to which she must ever remain, in our rightful speculations, a 

 helpful, if not always an obedient, handmaiden. 



In the year 1831, two places, the one ancient and memorable, the other young, 

 but destined to become memorable, bore the name of York. At the first of these, 

 amid relics of ancient Rome and lasting memorials of the better phases of Britain's 

 mediaeval history, were met together in that year the earliest members of the 

 British Association. And as the sun at noonday shone on that ancient York, it 

 rose upon the other York —a little town, scarcely more than a village, of 1,700 

 people, fast springing from a plain on the shores of Ontario, where the wigwam 

 of the Chippewa had lately been ; and between the two lay the Atlantic and a 

 distance of 3,800 miles. 



Sixty-six years later, the British Association meets in that other York, dis- 

 tinguished under the name of Toronto, and grown into a noble city. Painfully, in 

 stage coaches, must many of the founders of this Association have travelled to that 

 ancient York ; peacefully and amid all comfort and luxury have we from the 

 mother country reached, at her invitation, this great city — chiefest, in her people, 

 her commerce, and her University, of the cities of Western Canada. 



Neither at the meeting in York of 1831, nor elsewhere, until many years later, 

 was there any expectation of the possibility of these things. Six years later, 

 about the beginning of that glorious reign of which the sixty-first year is now 

 passing — although two or three vessels had already crossed the Atlantic under 

 steam, it was still seriously doubted whether, without the aid of a Government 

 subsidy of considerable amount, a line of steamers, even for the New York service, 

 could be permanently maintained. It was not, indeed, until 1838 that the Great 

 Western inaugurated the attempt on a commercial basis, and she performed in 

 fifteen days the vovage which is now regularly performed with complete com- 

 mercial success in five. 



