170 Canadian Record of Science. 
The minutes of last meeting were’read and approved. 
The Hon. Treasurer reported progress with the special 
collection for liquidation of the debt. 
Donations of an embroidered buffalo skin and a number 
of books from Mr. Ingersoll were announced. 
Dr. John Rae’s paper on “Some of the Birds and Mam- 
mals of the Hudson Bay Territories and the Arctic Coast,” 
and a paper by Dr. Anderson on “ Chicago Boulder Clay,” 
were read by the President. 
The thanks of the Society were tendered for these. 
ANNUAL MEETING. 
The annual meeting of the Natural History Society was 
held on the 28th of May, Sir William Dawson, President 
of the Society, occupied the chair, and delivered the follow- 
ing address :—On the present occasion I think it may 
be well, by way of variety, to deviate somewhat from our 
usual custom, and to make some general remarks on the 
use and function of a society of this nature in the midst of 
a busy mercantile and manufacturing community, and in a 
province in which an interest in science is, to say the least, 
very scantily diffused. When in 1855 I began the educa- 
tional work, which I have ever since been carrying on 
here, | regarded the existence of this society at that time 
with a small membership, but with some able men in its 
ranks, and with a very valuable museum, as a great encour- 
agement and aid in the introduction of the study of natu- 
ral science. In some respects I have not been disappointed. 
The collections of this society were of essential use to me 
in all the early days of my teaching here. The lectures 
and meetings and field-days have formed rallying points for 
our young devotees of natural science. The Society was 
the means of sustaining the Geological Survey in its earlier 
struggles, and it was the agency by which the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science was invited to 
this city in 1857—a movement which not only brought 
together a larger number of British and American and 
Canadian men of science than any previous assemblage, 
