12 TRANSACTIONS. 1879-$. 



can be no question that, apart from the influence of the library 

 and reading room, its annual courses of lectures have exerted 

 an elevating and cultivating influence that is difflcult to 

 measure in the intricacies of the social structure. 



As with the Mechanics' Institute, the Society has at 

 various times, attempted to secure a building of its own, but 

 the money question involved has, unfortunately, up to the 

 present time not been solved, although the amount involved 

 is not large, not more than $10,000.00. It is questionable 

 whether any public benefaction would confer so much lasting 

 and increasing good as the erection of a home, so to speak, for 

 the literary and scientific workers in our midst, a place where 

 they and other thinking men could meet and exchange 

 thoughts, where lectures both popular and technical could be 

 delivered, and whence a humanizing stream could flow 

 throughout all classes. Let us hope that the near future may 

 plant such a monument for a generous benefactor. 



The first general meeting of the Society was held January 

 nth, 1870, when a code of by-laws was adopted. A week 

 later a second general meeting was held and the first election 

 of officers took place. At this meeting the first life members, 

 James Cunningham and George Kennedy, were elected " in 

 consideration of their long and efficient services as Treasurer 

 and Secretary respectively of the late Mechanics' Institute and 

 Athenaeum." 



The first annual meeting of the Society was held on 

 April 29th' 1870, and the Librarian's report showed that 

 there were 971 volumes available for circulation. The number 

 at the present time is 3,861. During its first year three lectures 

 were delivered, the first by W. D. LeSueur on " The Greatest 

 Critic of the Age ;" * the next by William Kingsford, the 

 historian, on " Copper Coins of England ; " and the last by 

 J. H. Rowan, on the "Great Pyramid." 



From the beginning a small museum was connected 

 with the Society, but since the removal of the Geological 

 Museum from Montreal to Ottawa, the former has lost its 

 interest, and no efforts for its maintenance are now being 

 made. Many of the specimens it possessed have been sold or 

 otherwise alienated ; and an organization — the Ottawa Field 

 Naturalists' Club — was formed (1879), i^iainly through the 



*Af terwards enlarged and published in Westminster Review for April, 1871, und<?r 

 title of "Ste. Beuve." 



