148 Canadian Record of Science. 
“My first duty on this occasion is to express to you, fel- 
low members, my personal acknowledgment and thanks for 
the honour you have bestowed in placing me in the high 
position of President of the Royal Society of Canada, an 
office whose character is sufficiently shown by the mere 
mention of the names of those whom you selected to fill it 
in former years—Sir William Dawson, Dr. Chauveau, Dr. 
Sterry Hunt, Dr. Daniel Wilson, Monsignor Hamel. It 
would be difficult to select five other living names more 
intimately associated than those with the intellectual, edu- 
cational and industrial developement of Canada, or engra- 
ven in clearer lines in the records of our literature and 
science, or more deeply impressed upon the hearts of those 
classes of our people who are thoughtful, intelligent and 
enterprising. I might well then shrink from taking this 
chair and attempting to discharge the duties that pertain 
to it. If I had thought that your selection had been made 
solely on the ground of personal fitness, or as an acknow- 
ledgment of work done or to be done in any individual 
capacity, I should have hesitated to assent to your choice, 
or to attempt the task which acceptance involved. But the 
considerations which led to my acquiescence were of a dif- 
ferent kind. I felt that we were working together for the 
success of this society, not as an end in itself, but as a 
means—an organization—whereby we might be enabled, in 
some measure, to contribute our part in accomplishing the 
country’s good, promote literary and scientific research and 
discovery, educational improvement, industrial develop- 
ment and general intellectual activity throughout this 
Dominion; that we were charged with this work, and each 
bound not to shrink from the part that might be allotted to 
him; that we were here, moreover, as members not only 
in our individual capacities, for what we might do with our 
own hands, but also as the representatives of other active 
labourers in.the several departments of knowledge scattered 
through the various provinces; that once a year we might 
one and all come to the common meeting place, not merely 
to give account of the results reached by our personal 
