v^Xiv I'KUCEEDIXGS. 



Dalhousie. But all this M-ealth of facilities failed during the past 

 year to produce the output of the old strenuous days vhen we met 

 in the poorly lighted, hadly seated, and primitively warmed and 

 ventilated museum on Cheapside. 



It is true, the Institute of 1863 has lost heavily hy emigration. 

 The medical' doctors formed an association of their own. Those 

 developing mining industries branched out into the Mmmg 

 Societv of Xova Scotia: and later the engineers swarmed 

 out to form their own hive. But while making allowance for all 

 thi^ there should surelv he better conditions for the aeveiopment 

 cf the scientific cult to-day than ever before. It is therefore with 

 .ome disappointment I refer to the work of last year. It has not 

 come up to our improved opportunities. Our men of science have 

 been too completelv engrossed in the increasingly exacting duties 

 of their various routine public services. We must not forget, 

 however, to keep the vestal fire of scientific research alive m this 

 focus of the communit}-. That is a duty incumbent on everyone 

 engaged in scientific labor, and on evem- one seeing hope m the 

 scientific, cult. 



We had three meetings during the past year. The retiring 

 President in the Annual address gave an able sketch of late pro- 

 gress in the production of organic compounds, and made sugges- 

 tions for our future work which we have not yet attempted to 

 energetically develop. 



At our February meeting Mr. Walter H. Prest advocated a 

 prelmiinarv survev "of Xova Scotian caves for possible natural 

 historv or 'anthropological remains. Your Council supplied him 

 with some aid for such exploration, an account of the results of 

 which will be presented by Mr. Prest himself at this meeting. 



The May meeting brought out some valuable meteorological 

 notes by Mr. F. AT. W. Doane, C. E. : a comparison of the monthly 

 mean temperaturs of Halifax and Pl}-mouth on opposite sides of 

 the Atlantic by our ex-President, Dr. Henry S. Poole, F. E. S. C, 

 who does not forget the. Institute, although absent from the 

 Province ; a sketch of Mineral Occurrences in the Granites at New 

 Ko=s, Lunenburg Coimty by Mr. A. L. McCallum, B. Sc. ; a paper 

 on the effect of o-ravity en the cencentration of solutions, by Mr. 



