36 Canadian Record of Science. 



of biology has had a like effect in producing a far pro- 

 founder intellectual change in human thought than any 

 mere impulse of industrial development. Already its 

 application to sociology and education is recognized, but 

 that is of less import to human progress than the broaden- 

 ing of our views of Nature." 



The address concludes with the following remarks : 

 " Abstract discovery in science is, then, the true foundation 

 upon which the superstructure of modern civilization is 

 built; and the man who would take part in it should study 

 science, and, if he can, advance it for its own sake and not 

 for its applications. Ignorance may walk in the path 

 lighted by advancing knowledge, but she is unable to follow 

 when science passes her, for, like the foolish virgin, she has 

 no oil in her lamp. An established truth in science is like 

 the constitution of an atom in matter — something so fixed 

 in the order of things that it has become independent of 

 further dangers in the struggle for existence. The sum of 

 such truths forms the intellectual treasure which descends 

 to each generation in hereditary succession." 



The importance to Canada of such an address as Sir I/yon 

 Playfair's lies, as I have said before, in the application. 

 Canada can hardly regard her educational system as more 

 than tentative, when she has no institutions devoted to the 

 study of science exclusively and supported by Government 

 aid. 



Note on Boulder Drift and Sea Margins at 

 Little Metis, Lower St. Lawrence. 



By Sir William Dawson. 



At Little Metis, as elsewhere on the south side of the St. 

 Lawrence, the coast is fringed with a broad belt of boulders, 

 wholly covered at high tide, but exposed at low tide, and 

 occupying in many places a breadth of 30 to 50 paces, within 

 which the boulders are packed very closely. They vary 

 in size from 9 or 10 feet in diameter downward, and consist 



