174 Canadian Record of Science. 
ally the publications of societies abroad, and some of which 
are not accessible elsewhere in this city. Much has been 
done of late years by our honorary librarian, Mr. Beaudry, 
and by the library committee in enlarging our library and 
binding its numerous periodical publications, but the Society 
has always lacked the means to develop its usefulness 
in this direction. In the last session the Society has well sus- 
tained its work in the reading and in the publication of pa- 
pers. I may mention among these the interesting résumé by 
Dr. T. Wesley Mills of the work of the American Association 
in 1887, and papers by him on important physiological sub- 
jects; the papers by Mr. A. T. Drummond on the Prairies of 
Manitoba and on the Geographical and Geological Relations 
of British North American Plants; those of Prof. Penhallow 
on Physiological Botany; that on Fossil Sponges by Dr. 
Hinde and myself; those on Cambrian and Siluro-Cambrian 
Fossils by Mr. Matthew and Mr. Ami; Dr. Rae’s interesting 
Notes on Mammals and Birds of the Hudson’s Bay Terri- 
tories, and an important contribution on Water Analysis by 
Mr. McGill, and on the Climate of the Northwest by Mr. 
Ingersoll; New Species of Fresh-water Sponges from New- 
foundland by Mr. McKay, and a paper on a Destructive 
Visitation of Field-mice in Nova Scotia by Rev. Dr. Patter- 
son. A number of other subjects, however, occupied our 
attention at the monthly meetings, and will be found in 
the REcorD oF SciENcE. By way of practical conclusion, I 
need not hesitate to affirm that what the Society has done 
with very slender means might be largely increased if 
more ample resources were provided, and that both our 
fellow-citizens and the Provincial Government are called 
upon to lend us their aid. It has been well remarked that 
in societies of this kind the actual work is done gratuitously 
by scientific laborers who ask for no public recompense, and 
that all that the state and the general public are called 
on to do is that smaller part which consists in affording 
means of publication. No work for the public benefit is so 
cheaply and economically accomplished as that of scientific 
societies, and it is for this reason that such societies are so 
