6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



by the reading, discussion and subsequent publication of various 

 memoirs or papers, and (2) by memorials pi-esented to the Govern- 

 ment of the province, or provinces, in support of various public 

 institutions of a scientific character. 



I.— PAPERS. 



In the very first volume of the Canadian Journal will be found a 

 series of able articles, copiously illustrated, on that most practical of 

 subjects, the harbour of Toronto, by Mr. Sandford Fleming, Mr. 

 Kivas Tully, and others. In the same volume is a paper on 

 Toronto's water supply, a subject which has constantly engaged the 

 attention of the Institute, and still continues to do so. Certainly no 

 subject is of more direct importance to our fellow-citizens than this, 

 and I am persuaded that the publication in the daily press of papers 

 read before this Institute from time to time on this subject has been 

 of great advantage to the civic authorities in deciding upon this 

 vexed question, as well as on that of the disposal of our sewage. 

 I believe that even more can and will be done in this direction, to 

 the great benefit of the public. Continuing the examination of our 

 past work, I find in Yol. I. again Mr. Kivas Tully suggesting plans 

 for the improvement of our Esplanade, and Prof. Cherriman advocat- 

 ing, as eai'ly as 1853, the adoption of the decimal currency; in 

 Vol. II. there appears the first geological map of Upper Canada, by 

 Mr. (afterwards Sir) Wm. Logan, our first president ; and Dr. Cottle 

 gi\-es an account of Canadian silk-producing moths — a subject to 

 which the present chairman of our Biological Section, Dr. Brodie, 

 has devoted further unwearied and valuable investigation. 



In the third volume, 1855, I again find a practical paper by Dr. 

 Bovell on the best modes of dealing with the terrible scourge of 

 cholera, the fii'st of a series of communications on public health 

 which have been presented to the Institute from time to time, con- 

 cluding, for the present, with the contributions of Drs. Oldright, 

 Bryce, and Ellis. In the year 1870 a member of this Institute, Mr. 

 Andrew Elvins, anticipated by at least two years the labours of 

 other astronomers and meteorologists in investigating the connection 

 of sunspots with rainfalls, as well as with other meteorological 

 elements, and the result of his investigations seemed to hold fox'th 

 some prospect of establishing such a connection between these natural 

 phenomena as should ultimately enable the meteorologist to predict 



