26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE, 



We now know of the occurrence of a sufficient number of deposits of corundum 

 to offer anyone desiring to work them considerable choice as to location. I have 

 always been careful not to try to " boom " these deposits, as the abrasive industry 

 is a very complicated one, and it cannot be well foretold what success would be 

 met with on working the deposits. In any case I do not expect to see any corun- 

 dum millionaires, but I believe there is a fair chance of an industry being estab- 

 lished which would be a great benefit to the district in which the deposits are 

 situated. The question of using corundum economically as an ore of aluminium is 

 as yet an open one, and can probably only be settled by a series of prolonged 

 experiments. 



I brought with me a specimen or two of another mineral which we found in the 

 field while searching for corundum. , This mineral belongs to the comparatively 

 rare columbate group, and as it is the first time one of these minerals has been 

 found in Ontario I thought some of the members of the Institute might be inter- 

 ested in seeing specimens. 



I have to thank Mr. Blue for the encouragement and assistance which he has 

 ever been ready to give me during the progress of the work. That the energetic 

 manner in which the development of the mineral industries of the Province has 

 been carried on during the past seven or eight years, the time during which the 

 Bureau of Mines has been in existence, is appreciated abroad is evident from a 

 letter which I receivd a short time ago from one of the most prominent mining 

 men in Eastern Canada. The writer of that letter made this statement: — "The 

 policy which Ontario has adopted with regard to the acquiring of information 

 ' respecting her minerals and the publishing promptly of reliable reports is a lesson 

 to us which many of us here have been hoping might be copied in our Province." 

 And now I have to thank you, Mr. President, and the members of the Institute 

 for the privilege you have afiforded me, a non-member, of addressing these remarks 

 to you. Since my student days in this city I have hal cause to appreciate the 

 encouragement which the Canadian Institute has of¥ered to workers in science 

 throughout the Province. I read some time ago an account of the plan which Mr. 

 Bain has laid before the members of this Institute for the establishiment of a Provin- 

 cial reference library. I hope to see this plan carried out in its entirety, and it 

 will be found it will receive the enthusiastic support of those of us who are inter- 

 ested in science and who live at a distance from the Provincial capital. When this 

 library is established students of science throughout Ontario will be under a still 

 further debt of gratitude to the Canadian Institute, which has now for so many 

 years served as the centre of scientific thought in the Province. 



