Progress of Botany. 43 



Survey for this department. Professor John Macoun and 

 his son, James M. Macoun, who are exceptionally gifted 

 with botanical instincts, have given a good account of 

 themselves, and are still busily engaged in adding to the 

 list of plants that have been discovered within the limits 

 of the Dominion. Macoun, the elder, was one of the men 

 to whom the advent to Canada of Professor George Law- 

 son, a pupil of Dr. John Balfour, of Edinburgh, proved an 

 inspiration. He had been previously trying to work away 

 with a most imperfect apparatus, making collections in 

 the central part of Ontario, and identifying them as best 

 he could, when he learned of Dr. Lawson's appointment 

 as Professor of Natural History at Queen's College. Kings- 

 ton. He was not long in making the accpuaintance of the 

 Professor, with the result that he was put in the way of 

 acquiring that practical mastery of the subject which he 

 has since displayed. It was not to Mr. Macoun alone 

 that Dr. Lawson proved a stimulating teacher. He im- 

 parted an impulse to the study of Botany throughout 

 Canada, so that in many centres, — in Montreal among the 

 rest, — about the year 1860, there was more enthusiasm 

 over this subject than had been before or has been, per- 

 haps, since. 



And this brings us to the date at which both Botany 

 and Zoology entered upon a new stage of progress. It 

 was in the year 1859 that Charles Darwin's epoch-making 

 work, " The Origin of Species," was given to the public. 

 I can recall, as if it were yesterday, the sensation which 

 it at once created in scientific, literary and theological 

 circles, in Canada as well as elsewhere. Every reader 

 was charmed with the glow which warmed and lighted up 

 the pages of this book, and admired the diligence and 

 patience of the author, in the accumulation of the facts 

 from which he inferred his inductions, as well as the 

 modest way in which he formulated his conclusions, so as 

 to shock as little as possible those who might be indis- 



