TRANSIT OF VENUS. 335 



Kingston, S. E. Dawson, Alex. Buntin, G. A. Drummond, Dr. Scott, John 

 Kennedy, Hugh McLennan, W. B. Lewis, J. J. Maclaren, Q. C, John Lovell^ 

 Richard White, VV. O'Brien, D. Morrice, R. A. Ramsay, W. Angus, G. B. Bur- 

 land, J. A. U. Baudry, T. Foster Bateman, W. Taylor, T. D. King, Dr. Tren- 

 holme. Dr. Turgeon and others. 



The reception lasted about an hour, after which the company began to dis- 

 perse. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTIONS. 



We are gratified to be able to give to our readers in the following pages a 

 very full report of the proceedings of the several sections, with pretty complete 

 and accurate abstracts of many of the best papers read, an ^account of the excur- 

 sions participated in by the members, and many other items of interest that will 

 probably not be found in any other journal of this class. 



We are indebted to Professors Putnam, Mason, Lovewell, Bassett and Ward, 

 Rev. H. C. Hovey and to. Mr. Cook of the Montreal Star, for material furnished 

 and attentions rendered, and we shall remember with pleasure the brief personal 

 intercourse had with Principal Dawson, of McGill University, Dr. John Rae, of 

 London, Prof. H, C. Bolton, of Hartford, and others who had in the past con- 

 tributed articles to the Review, but whom we had never met before. 



AST-RONOMY. 



TRANSIT OF VENUS. 



Section A met in the Wm. Molson Hall, to hear the reading of a paper 

 on "The Transit of Venus," by Prof. J. R. Eastman. The author of the 

 paper is Mr. Wm. Harkness, the Chairman of the Section, who was unavoidably 

 detained at Washington on important business. The paper went on to say 

 that transits of Venus usually occur in pairs, the two transits of a pair be 

 ing separated by only eight years, but between the nearest transits of consecutive 

 pairs more than a century elapses. We are now on the eve of the second transit 

 of a pair, after which none other will occur till the twenty-first century of our 

 era has dawned upon the earth, and the June flowers are blooming in A. D. 2004. 

 When the last transit season occurred, the intellectual world was awakening from 

 the slumber of ages, and that wondrous scientific activity which has led to our 

 present advanced knowledge was just beginning. What will be the state of 

 science when the next transit season arrives, God only knows. Not even our 

 children's children will Hve to take part in the study of the astronomy of that 



