PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION. 327 



The Lord Bishop of Montreal was then called upon to ask the Divine bless- 

 ing upon the Association's meetings. 



Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, Montreal, Chairman of the Local Committee, then rose 

 and addressed the assembly, welcoming, on behalf of the Local Committee, all 

 those present to the city of Montreal. On this occasion there arose before them 

 many interesting memories of the past. Some five-and-twenty years had now 

 passed away since the American Association for the Advancement of Science had 

 held their first meeting in Canada, in this very city of Montreal. Of the mem- 

 bers of the then Local Committee only three were with them to-day, — their new 

 President, Dr. J. W. Dawson, Dr. W. H. Kingston, and the speaker. Looking 

 back that time seemed a day of small things. Those who saw Montreal then saw 

 a little city of 50,000 to 60,000 souls; to-day His Worship the Mayor held juris- 

 diction over some 150,000 persons. The Association then numbered about 400 

 members; to-day it had no less than 2,000 members, so that it would be perceived 

 that the Association and the city had grown together, and the infant college of 

 which Dr. Dawson had then just assumed the helm, had grown to be a great 

 and noble university. Its museum and rare collections, then so small, now 

 required a separate structure to themselves. The Association which held 

 session to-day was popular, and justly so, for it went from city to city diffusing 

 its knowledge broadcast throughout the land irrespective of race or nation- 

 ality. After referring to the German Society the speaker went on to speak 

 of the British Association, which last year celebrated its fiftieth anniversary under 

 the Presidency of Sir John Lubbock. The American Society came after those 

 two in point of age, and after it followed the French Association now about ten 

 years old, and which last year met away out in the heart of Africa, where it num- 

 bered upward of a thousand members. Our own American Association began as 

 an association of geologists and naturalists in 1842, the speaker joined it in 1845. 

 Its inception was thus independent of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, but the leaders of the latter body led the American scientists to 

 recast their association and give it the name it now holds. This was done at 

 Philadelphia in 1848, and he boasted of one of the earliest members forming it. 

 of which so few were spared to be with them to-day, and yet it was only thirty- 

 four years ago. There had been an interruption during the civil war, so the So- 

 ciety only counted this as its thirty-first anniversary. The United States and 

 Canada were counted in the great work of science as one. At the time of the 

 Geological Survey many scientific men were attracted to Canada from the other 

 side of line 45°. Prof. Hall had been much associated with the Survey and it was 

 judged proper, in 1857, to have the meeting at Montreal. The late Sir Wm. 

 Logan, then Chief of the work, was Chairman of the Local Committee, and he 

 (Dr. Hunt) acted as Secretary. It was a matter of regret that the duties of the 

 present director of the Survey required his presence^in our far western Province. 

 The citizens would be proud to show their guests the Mountain and Island Parks, 

 the Churches, Museum and other points of interest. The Canadian Pacific Rail- 

 way would convey such as wished to visit Ottawa on Saturday next, where the 



