HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE INSTITUTE. — PIERS. Ixxvii 



ScoTiA in the summer of 1900, under control of the Depart- 

 ment of Public Works and Mines. The scientific works of 

 the Legislative Librarj^ were passed to it in July and the 

 transfer of the Institute's books from Dalhousie College was 

 begun on 17th November, while manuals, textbooks, etc., 

 were added by the government by purchase, and the whole 

 was thrown open^ free, to the public of the Province, soon 

 after, thus becoming the first public library for the whole 

 of Nova Scotia. The Mining Society also deposited its books 

 there till February, 1907, when it fitted up a room of its own. 

 A government grant of S500 a year for the support of the 

 Science Library was given up to 1904; but after that, was 

 withdrawn, and I regret to say that it is now without direct 

 financial support. 



Having utterly outgrown its quarters in the so-called 

 Burns and Murray building on Hollis Street, the library was 

 removed in May-June, 1910, to a new and larger stack-room 

 in the Technical College. 



On 31st December, 1911, it contained 45,497 books and 

 pamphlets, of which 34,085 (about 75 per cent.) belong to the 

 Institute. The average yearly increase to the society's library 

 is 1,841; and to the Science Library proper, 1,099; a total 

 average yearly increase of 2,940. 



The Provincial Museum. 



Dr. A. H. MacKay has aptly spoken of the Provincial 

 Museum as "the ward of the government, but the child of 

 the Institute." The society has always taken a very vital 

 interest in it, for it was formed at the solicitation of its mem- 

 bers, and it has always deposited in it such specimens as were 

 donated to it, so that in one way it is the Institute's museum 

 in part, although under control of the government. 



The origin of the collections it contains goes back to 1831 

 when -the old Mechanics' Institute began to form a general 



Peoc. & TKAV3. N. S. IN'ST. Sc I., VoL. XIII. Pboc— F. 



