88 THE president's address. 



place, the newest part of this great crystalline series is unconfor'- 

 mable to the ancient fossiliferous or so called primordial rocks 

 which overlie it ; so that it must have undergone disturbing move- 

 ments before the latter or primordial set were formed. Then again 

 the other half of the Laurentian series is unconformable to the 

 newer portion of the same. It is in the lowest- and most ancient 

 system of crystalline strata that a limestone about a thousand feet 

 thick has been observed, containing organic remains. These fossils 

 have been examined by Dr. Dawson, of Montreal, and he has 

 detected in them, by the aid of the microscope, the distinct struc- 

 ture of a large species of Ehizopod. Fine specimens of this fossil 

 called Eozoon Canadense, have been brought to Bath by Sir William 

 Logan, to be exhibited to the members of the Association. "We 

 have every reason to suppose that the rocks in which these animal 

 remains are included are of as old a date as any of the formations 

 named Azoic in Europe, if not older ; so that they preceded in date 

 rocks once supposed to have been formed before any organic beings 

 had been created." 



While the Canadian people of all parties are contemplating 

 with satisfaction the formation of a peaceful union of the British 

 American Provinces, it is impossible not to think of the un- 

 happy war which ha^ for some years been dividing the States 

 which lie south of us. At the time of their final separation from 

 Great Britain, the population of the old American Colonies did 

 not differ much from that which our Confederation would have 

 at its formation. Considerably less than a century has since passed ; 

 and yet, in this dreadful contest, the Northern and Southern States, 

 together, have raised, and have year after year kept in the field, 

 contending armies which have seldom been paralleled amongst the 

 oldest and most warlike nations of Europe ; and have expended 

 in the war more money than was probably ever expended in war 

 by any country in the same space of time before ; and the greater 

 part of the enormous expenditure has been accomplished without 

 loans from any foreign country. 



This unhappy contest has served to direct an unusual amount 

 of attention on the part of men of scientific skill and energy, 

 both in Europe and America, to the improvement of the vari- 

 ous means of attack and defence which war calls forth. The war 

 of the Crimea had directed special attention to the subject, and 



