iv PROCEEDINGS, 



dence of this we have only to look around us at the present 

 moment. The building in which we are meeting and its 

 equipment prove that the public is realizing how indispensable 

 is the service which science renders the community. The 

 Technical College will add considerably to the facilities for 

 scientific instruction and research; and we may look to it 

 with confidence to make large additions to our knowledge — 

 more especially in applied science. In the older provincial colleges, 

 also, the most noteworthy progress in recent years, has been in the 

 expansion of the scientific departments, sho'svn in the opening of 

 new laboratories or in important additions to staff and equipment. 

 All this implies that scientific w^ork is receiving more serious 

 attention in our Province now than at any previous time, and the 

 conditions for the growth of a Society devoted to the promotion of 

 scientific research should not at least be less favourable than they 

 have hitherto been. This consideration should stimulate us to 

 energetic efforts in order to realize more fully than we now do the 

 purpose for wliich the Society exists. 



As the purpose of the Institute is to promote research, the 

 true index of its prosperity is not the length of its membership list, 

 but the quality and quantity of its contributions to knowledge. 

 Progress here is more difficult to estimate, but a careful survey of 

 our 3'early Transactions leads to the conclusion that we are doing 

 little, if any, more than maintaining the position of ten or twenty 

 years ago. Can we do anything to stimulate progress? 



The Institute has in the past endeavoured to promote investi- 

 gation principally in four ways : (1) by undertaking the publication 

 of scientific investigations; (2) by accumulating a library and 

 making it accessible to all who desire to use it; (3) by associating 

 together those interested in scientific investigation with a view to 

 stimulating individual effort; and (4) by attempting to arouse 

 general interest in scientific work. 



It will be admitted that we have not been equally successful in 

 these various directions. We have, in the first place, succeeded 

 in publishing with fair regularity the papers presented to the 

 Society. In regard to our library we can point with satisfaction 

 to our considerable and growing collection of publications of 



