332 Canadian Record of Science. 



which they have not hitherto been sent. Only a fortnight 

 ago, for instance, the Hon. Secretary received some very in- 

 teresting volumes from the Imperial University of Japan, 

 at Tokio, with an expression of the wish that the Transac- 

 tions should be regularly sent to that institution." More 

 than six hundred copies are thus distributed every year, 

 and that they do not lie unread on dusty shelves is shown 

 by the best of evidence — the extent to which they are quoted 

 in works dealing with the themes of which they treat. 



Apart from its relations to the centres of learning and re- 

 search in other lands, and its attractive potency on the 

 scattered circles of local intellectual effort in the Dominion, 

 the Royal Society plays a not unimportant role in connec- 

 tion with the State. This phase of its usefulness (which has 

 hardly yet, perhaps, been allotted due significance) was 

 very clearly illustrated in a paper read by the late Dr. 

 Alpheus Todd, C.M.G., before the Society not long before 

 his death. Citing the example of New South Wales, which 

 was the first of the British Colonies to establish a Eoyal 

 Society, he commended the statesmen of that great country 

 for availing themselves of the co-operation of learned and 

 capable advisers to advance the public welfare in matters 

 that lay distinctly apart from the domain of party politics. 

 In so doing, however, they were simply following the pre- 

 cedent of the motherland, which had long assigned to the 

 Royal Society of London certain duties of a scientific nature 

 which it was peculiarly qualified to discharge. The appli- 

 cation of the same principle in Canada was a logical sequel 

 of the formation of such a body. The same subject was 

 very appositely though indirectly treated by the first Pre- 

 sident in his second address (1883), wherein he outlined the 

 progress already achieved mainly through the Geological 

 and Natural History Survey and the provisions for science 

 teaching in the Universities. A perceptible stimulus was 

 given to the scientific movement in Canada, both in its 

 practical and scientific aspect, by the departure of the Bri- 



