124 THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 
From the epoch of Silurian crinoids to the era of the drift and its 
included traces of human arts, is a transition as vast in point of time 
as the distances in space which the astronomer reduces to definite fig- 
ures, but which the mind in vain attempts to realize. Compared with 
such a transition, the lapse of time from the earliest traces of human art 
to our modern nineteenth century is brief enough; yet the contrast 
seems scarcely so great between the organic forms of our lower silurian 
rocks, and the mammals of the drift, as that which separates the first 
rude evidences of human ingenuity in the latter formation, from such 
triumphs of mechanical skill as the ‘‘ Great Eastern ’’ of the Thames, 
or the ‘‘ Victoria Tubular Bridge” of our own St. Lawrence. The great 
achievement of mechanical science and fearless enterprise embodied 
in the gigantic structure which now spans the wide waters of the 
St. Lawrence, and has been opened for traffic since last we assembled 
here, is the crowning feature of that arterial system of railways 
which well nigh annihilates for us the impediments of time and space 
and is already revolutionizing our whole relations of commercial and 
social life. 
It is impossible, however, to revert to either of those wonderful 
triumphs of mechanical science, without also recalling the painful co- 
incidence that, alike in the Great Eastern Steam Ship and the Victoria 
Bridge, the inventive genius that had planned and directed each, 
throughout all the stages of its progress towards completion, was 
snatched away when seemingly on the eve of realizing his most cher- 
ished hopes. The death of Robert Stephenson, at the too early age 
of fifty-one, only a few weeks before the completion of that colossal 
creation of his genius waich constitutes, not for Canada only, but for 
the world at large, one of the fittest memorials of the great Engineer, 
has already been referred to in the Annual Report of the Council: 
for, honored by ranking him among our Honorary Members, the Cana- 
dian Institute claims her share im the loss occasioned by the death of 
him whose remains have been laid amid the royal and noble dead of 
Westminster Abbey, with marks of distinction and tokens of public 
sorrow, rarely accorded but to such combinations of genius and great 
personal worth. 
Your attention has been recalled by the interesting communication 
of Dr. Rae, to the latest results of Arctic discovery, which, while 
clearing up all mystery as to the fate of the lamented Franklin, ranks 
him in one sense among those whose loss we have anew mourned during 
