104 THE president's ADDRESS. 



at least to amalgamate with some new Society which might undertake 

 to connect the science and learning of the whole Dominion in some 

 common bond ; but to this there exist such serious obstacles, that to 

 hope to overcome them requires more enthusiasm than many of us 

 possess, and after all the field would be too wide for a single moderate 

 sized publication to do justice to all its parts, and the difficulty of agree- 

 ing about a common centre of management, the distance of the parts 

 and (for the present) the difficulty of communication, would interfere 

 with the success of the experiment. Giving up as hopeless, and 

 attended with certain serious evils this wider plan, it seems evident 

 enough that we must not pretend to provide for any wants of the Pro- 

 vince of Qaebec, but must withdraw within the bounds of Ontario. Is 

 it possible for us to extend our useful influences within these bounds, 

 or docs prudence counsel taking the opportunity of confining ourselves 

 to providing for the wants of this city, and its immediate neighbour- 

 hood ? It seems to me that we have no right to confine ourselves 

 within narrower limits than the Province of Ontario. So far as we are 

 a publishing Society, the whole Province has an interest in knowing 

 what we do, and studious men in all parts of it, have a claim on our 

 pages, as being their proper access to the public for communications of 

 a certain class, whilst it is obviously our object to make the journal 

 express the highest thought and most original and important inquiry, 

 carried on within our bounds, so far as their results can take a form 

 suitable to our plans. The Province of Quebec has its own scientific 

 journal, with which we cannot interfere ; but we should be sorry to see 

 our own immediate citizens driven beyond our bounds to find means of 

 making known their discoveries and opinions, and whilst the Province 

 of Ontario ought to furnish abundance and variety of material — it may 

 be safely affirmed that for a considerable time to come, the multiplica- 

 tion of periodical publications, devoted to science and the more abstruse 

 forms of literature, could only occasion pecuniary loss and the disap- 

 pointment of all concerned. It may still be said that we have never 

 obtained a large number of country members, and that it is natural 

 that towns which are now rapidly rising in magnitude and importance, 

 should provide intellectual resources for themselves, and have societies 

 of their own. I answer it is desirable that they should, {and they have 

 our hearty wishes for their success ; but since in union is strength, and 

 since the attempt at separate publication could at present only result in 

 evil, why should not all local literary and scientific societies, whether 



