10 Things to be observed in Canada. 



by following on his track. He will thank you for anything that 

 you can do in the accumulation of facts; that is, provided you 

 do not embarrass him and oppose the interests of truth by those 

 crude and hasty generalizations, or baseless hypotheses, in which 

 unskilful and hasty observers are too prone to indulge, and which 

 sometimes impose upon the credulity of the public to- the serious 

 injury of the science. No department of natural science presents 

 greater temptations to such vagaries than geology, and none has 

 suffered more seriously from their effect on the popular mind. 

 No seience is more grand in its ultimate truths, none more valu- 

 able in its practical results, than geology, when pursued in the 

 spirit which characterises the head of our survey. None is more 

 dangerous or misleading in the hands of pretenders. 



The subject of geology I may remind you includes within itself 

 many subordinate fields, which have been or are being successfully 

 cultivated, by observers in various parts of Canada ; and here as in 

 most other part^ of America, geological investigations have been 

 more eagerly and extensively pursued than other branches of na- 

 tural science. The mineralogical researches of Dr. Holmes, and 

 of Dr. Wilson of Perth, who, though not one of our citizens, has 

 contributed much to our collection, and the geological observa- 

 tions of Dr. Bigsby, some of which relate to the vicinity of this 

 city, preceded the work of the Provincial Survey, and not only 

 made many important discoveries, but may be regarded as among 

 the causes whieh led to the institution of that great enterprise, so 

 successful and so creditable to the Province, Nor must I here 

 omit the interesting paper on the Montreal mountain, long since 

 contributed to this Society by our late Treasurer, Dr. Workman, 

 a paper to which I all the more readily give prominence here, as 

 I have had the pleasure of visiting some of the localities in com- 

 pany with its author, and as it was inadvertently omitted in the list 

 of authorities referred to in the paper on that subject, which I 

 lately read before this Society. Were it expedient to attempt 

 extending such notices beyond the more immediate limits of our 

 own sphere of operation, I might name many useful men who 

 have variously distinguished themselves in this science, by way of 

 encouragement to our embryo geologists. One name 1 cannot 

 pass by, that of a man of much more than Canadian 

 reputation, and of eminent usefulness in promoting the growth of 

 Canadian geology, Prof. Chapman, of University College, Toronto? 

 whose able papers and notices in the Canadian Journal wc shall 

 do well if we can approach in the journal of this Society. I shall 



