76 PROCEEDINGS OP THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



as is the truth of this bald statement, we possess within easy distance from long- 

 settled districts vast areas about which we know nothing, or nearly nothing. For 

 some of this ignorance there is adequate excuse ; for much of it there is no excuse 

 whatever. But in addition to the knowledge which is so clearly due to the people 

 on economic grounds, there is knowledge, much of which upon a wide consideration 

 of national interest it would be a true economy to possess, but which may be better 

 understood by being regarded as what is due to the intelligence of the people rather 

 than to their pockets. As an intelligent people we are entitled to learn gradually 

 all that there is to be known about the natural phenomena of our country, and as 

 an intelligent people we are entitled to possess museums in which may be exploited, 

 not only the materials for national wealth, but also the entire range of natural 

 phenomena as far as it can be exhibited objectively. Doubtless, no one in this 

 particular audience will question this last statement, but we should always keep 

 before us the fact that in a new country the majority of the people have their minds 

 filled with material considerations alone. They or their parents have begun life, 

 if not literally seeking their bread, still having as the main purpose the improve- 

 ment of the material circumstances of their lives, and so it happens that they are 

 deaf to any but what they deem practical arguments. The politicians reflect the 

 people and it is therefore much more difl&cult than would at first seem natural to 

 obtain a hearing for any expenditure of money which will only indirectly benefit 

 the people. But while this is inevitable in the early days of a country struggling 

 with poverty, it is disgraceful in any country to continue to neglect the higher con- 

 siderations of national life when there is no longer the excuse of national poverty. 



I should like this evening to consider with you what national and provincial 

 surveys should accomplish, and what national and provincial museums should 

 contain, and whether there is any longer a shadow of excuse for Canada persisting, 

 as it has for so long a time, in neglecting these duties. 



And first it may be well to review some of the work done in the past by which 

 we have become better acquainted with our country. I shall refer almost entirely 

 to work done by those who were in the public service, whether of Great Britain, 

 the old Provinces, or the Hudson's Bay Company and other fur-trading companies^ 

 with only passing remarks on others whose work had no ofiicial origin. 



In 1814, Admiral Bayfield, his duties in connection with the war being over, 

 began a survey of the Great Lakes, which after the labour of many years resulted 

 in the series of charts covering the entire St. Lawrence system of lakes and rivers 

 and parts of our Atlantic sea-coast, on which charts so much of our navigation still 

 depends. He also found time about 1830 to publish in the first volume of the 

 journal of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, papers on the geology of 

 Lake Superior and on coral animals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Major-General, 

 then Lieutenant Baddeley, and Sir Richard, then Captain Bonnycastle, both of the 

 Royal Engineers, appear also to have been students of geology, and both con- 

 tributed papers to the early volumes of the same journal, the services of the former 

 being used, according to Sir William Logan, in a public capacity. He was the 

 first to write regarding the lower Silurian limestones about Lake St. John and 

 Murray Bay, and some of our early knowledge of the Labrador Coast and the 

 Magdalen Islands, is due to him. 



About the time when Bayfield was surveying the Great Lakes, Prof. A. 

 Lockwood, who was styled " Professor of Hydrography and Assistant Surveyor- 

 General of the Province of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton," was surveying the 

 coast and harbours of that province, the result of his labours being published in 

 1818.* 



We are not so much concerned with mere topography, but it is interesting to 

 note that Major Samuel Holland, Surveyor-General of British North America, who, 

 as early as 1768, was working out the latitude and longitude of Cape Breton, was 

 the uncle of Lieiitenant-Colonel Joseph Bouchette, who was also Surveyor-General 

 and did considerable work regarding the Maine boundary in connection with the 

 Boundary Commission under the Treaty of Ghent, and whose topographical and 

 statistical volumes on the various eastern provinces are so well known, f From our 



* Brief Description of Nova Scotia. A. Lockwood, London, 1818. 



t I "The British Dominions in North America," etc. J. Bouchette, 2 vols., London, 1832. 

 2 "A Topographical Dictionary of Lower Canada." J. Bouchette, London, 1832. 



