PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 6l 



Observations Made on a Tour in Canada. Bv Albert Penck. 



A Paper Read on March i6th, 1898, 



With 12 illustrations in the Text/' 



Ffom the 38th Vol., No. 11. Society /o>- the Extension 0/ Nalnyal Science, Vienna, ifigS. 



(Translated by D. R. Keys. Tuionto. Canada). 



The British Association for the Advancemeut of Science met from An<>-ust 

 18th to the 24th, 1897, for the second time on Canadian soil, at Toronto, on^'tlie 

 north shore of Lake Ontario. The Government of the British Dominion of Canada 

 and of the Province of Ontario, the Council and population of the city of Toronto 

 the great railway companies and all the scientific circles throughout the wide 

 extent of British North America vied with one another in order to make the stay 

 of their guests from the Mother country upon Canadian soil as pleasant and as 

 instructive as possible, and in order to give them the most agreeable impression of 

 the country. Connected M'ith the meeting Avere extended excursions, partly in the 

 neighbourhood of Toronto, partly under distinguished guidance across the continent 

 as far as the island of Vancouver on the coast of British Columbia, the El Dorado 

 of the present and near future. 



A week before the meeting of the British Association for the Advancemeut of 

 Science at Toi-onto, the American Society of the same name met from Au"-ust 

 9th to the 14th, at Detroit, on the strait between Lakes Erie and Huron. It 

 was a sign of the excellent relations between Britons and Americans that each 

 society invited the other ; first, the British were the guests of the American Asso- 

 ciation, which, realizing the i)an- American idea, has members on both sides of the 

 forty-ninth parallel, then the Americans attended the British Association, which 

 represents the intellectual unity of the world-wide British Empire. Thus it was 

 that within a short space of time an excellent opportunity was offered of meetino- 

 with American and British scientists in two places which, for that country, are not 

 far removed from each other. While at Detroit a large number of American 

 investigators had met with a considerable number of their British fellows, the meet- 

 ing at Toronto ottered such an assembly of British and American scholars as has 

 probably never before taken place. One may say with confidence it was a meeting 

 of the most eminent English-speaking scholars ; one got not only the idea of a 

 British world-empire, but still more of the actual existence of an English world- 

 sjieech. 



It was my privilege to be invited as an honorary guest to the British Associa- 

 tion, and I also attended the American meeting in the same capacity. Never can I 

 forget the days which I passed, first in Detroit and then more especially in Toronto, 

 in a circle of illustrious men. The excursions connected with the British Associa- 

 tion mark an extension of my geographical horizon such as I had never before 

 experienced. But the recollection of all this scientific gain is rivalled by the 

 memory of a truly magnificent hospitality which I enjoyed from my place of em- 

 barkation to the New World, that is, from Liverpool across the Atlantic and from 

 its western edge across Canada to the Pacific. 



The shortest, although not the quickest, way from Europe to Canada leads 

 across the North Atlantic to the Straits of Belle Isle, which afford an entrance 

 between Labrador and Newfoundland to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. By this sum- 

 mer route of the Canadian steamships from Liverpool to Montreal, one comes 

 within 800 kilometers of Iceland and 500 kilometers of the south point of Green- 

 land, and arriA'es at the most inhospitable part of the coast of America, that of 

 Labrador. It is washed by the cold Labrador current, which bears the icebergs of 

 Greenland aAvay south to the Banks of Newfoundland. Ou the evening of August 



■ It is unfortunately impossible to reproduce the illustrations in this translation. 



