142 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 761 



quate scale in London." The vice-presidents 

 of the meeting included the Governor-General 

 of Canada, Sir John Macdonald (then Pre- 

 mier), Sir Lyon Playfair and Sir Charles 

 Tupper; v?hile among the sectional presidents 

 were Lord Kelvin (then Sir William Thom- 

 son), Sir Henry Eoscoe and Sir Richard 

 Temple. Others who attended included Sir 

 (then Professor) James Dewar, Admiral Sir 

 Erasmus Ommanney, Dr. W. H. Perkin, Sir 

 (then Mr.) W. H. Preece, Sir (then Professor) 

 Eobert Ball, Sir (then Professor) Oliver 

 Lodge and General (then Lieutenant) A. G. 

 Greely, of the United States Army, who was 

 but lately returned from his famous Arctic 

 expedition. It is interesting also to note that 

 in 1884 the association met in only eight sec- 

 tions as compared with the eleven of the pres- 

 ent day, physiology, botany and educational 

 science then having no separate sections de- 

 voted to their special consideration. 



The Toronto meeting, held in August, 1897, 

 was again notable for the lavish hospitality 

 extended to the visiting members of the asso- 

 ciation by their Canadian hosts. The meeting 

 was not, however, nearly so large as that at 

 Montreal, the attendance numbering only 

 1,362 members, associates and foreign guests. 

 Otherwise this second trip of the British 

 Association's to the Canadian Dominion was 

 no less successful than the Montreal meeting 

 in giving an impulse to the cultivation of the 

 scientific spirit in Canada and in furthering 

 the spread of imperial sentiments. At the 

 inaugural gathering Sir John Evans, the 

 treasurer of the Royal Society, took over the 

 presidency of the association from Lord 

 Lister ; and one of the pleasantest of the social 

 functions was a banquet given in honor of 

 Lord Kelvin, Lord Lister and Sir John Evans. 

 Among the sectional presidents were Sir (then 

 Professor) William Ramsay, Sir (then Pro- 

 fessor) Michael Foster and Dr. George Daw- 

 son, C.M.G., the late director of the Canadian 

 Geological Survey ; while the evening lecturers 

 were Dr. John Milne, Professor W. Chandler 

 Roberts- Austen and Dr. H. O. Forbes. 



At Winnipeg, where the association is to 

 hold its meeting this year, the visitors will 



find themselves in a city which is the living 

 embodiment of the remarkable development 

 of Canada's western prairies during the quar- 

 ter of a century which has elapsed since the 

 association's first visit to Canada. Less than 

 forty years ago a simple trading post of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company occupied the position 

 where to-day stands the third largest city in 

 the whole Dominion of Canada. In 1870 

 Winnipeg was a mere outpost of the empire, 

 boasting of a population of 215 souls. When 

 the last census was taken in 1901 the popula- 

 tion was 42,000, a sufficiently notable develop- 

 ment, but small in comparison with the rapid 

 extension of the city in the last few years. 

 At the end of 1907, according to the handbook 

 which has been issued by the local executive 

 committee in connection with the forthcoming 

 meeting, Winnipeg contained no fewer than 

 118,000 people. It was only in the spring of 

 1879 that the city was placed in railway com- 

 munication with the outer world; and a handy 

 " Souvenir of Winnipeg," issued in connection 

 with the visit of the association to Montreal in 

 1884, contains as frontispiece a quaint view of 

 the main street, in which the most prominent 

 conveyances are single-horse trams. To-day 

 smart electric trams traverse the city in all 

 directions, and Winnipeg, situated at what 

 has been called the wasp's waist of Canada's 

 railway system, is one of the most important 

 railway centers in the dominion. It is not 

 uninteresting to note some of the statistical 

 facts so proudly quoted in the handbook to 

 which reference has been made as evidence of 

 the extent and importance of the city. Winni- 

 peg, we are there told, has 291 miles of paved 

 and graded streets, 170 miles of water-mains, 

 675 electric street are-lights, 29 miles of tram- 

 ways and 28 schools. Covering an area of 

 19,000 acres, its total assessable property waa 

 valued in 1907 at $106,000,000, or more than 

 double the value in 1904. The output of its 

 manufactures in 1905 was valued at $19,000,- 

 000; its bank clearings in 1907 totaled $600,- 

 000,000 ; while as the outlet for the wheat har- 

 vest of the Canadian northwest it boasts of 

 being the gTeatest grain market in the British 

 Empire. 



