380 



SOME ASSOCIATIONS OF THE CANADIAN AND ENGLISH MAPLE. 



[1855. 



The efforts of the Canadian Institute to accomplish the 

 objects for which it was organized, must for a time be feeble; 

 and to speak of the benefits which we trust it may be the means 

 of conferring, it becomes us to express our hopes rather than 

 our conviction. 



Yet the country which is to be the field of its operations is 

 seen by your Excellency to be one of great promise, and if it 

 shall please the same good Providence which has given to us 

 in such abundant measure the elements of material prosperity, 

 to bless us with the continuance of peace, and to maintain 

 among our people the same respect for law and order which 

 has hitherto honorably distinguished them, it cannot be unrea- 

 sonable to expect that some among the natives of Canada will 

 become eminent in the walks of science, and obtain a celebrity 

 which will shed lustre on the country of their birth. 



The Government and the Legislature of the Province, which 

 have made such strenuous efibrts for the diffusion of elementary 

 instruction among all classes of the people, have done much to 

 encourage the Canadian Institute in the early stage of its pro- 

 gress, and we have no reason to doubt that they will extend to 

 it their continued countenance and support. 



The Governor General replied — Mr. President : Before 

 quitting this spot, I must express my perfect concurrence in 

 those hopes to which you have just given expression. I see 

 every reason to hope that the future of Canada may make her 

 as distinguished in literature and science as she is at present in 

 material prosperity. I find additional reason to hope this when 

 I see that a single individual, Mr. Allan, has shown so much 

 zeal and liberality in the cause by his gift on the present occa- 

 sion. It gives me double pleasure to assist in the ceremony 

 of laying the foundation-stone of the Canadian Institute, when 

 so noble a donation has been made by one of its members. 



The proceedings were closed with hearty cheers for His 

 Excellency the Governor-General, who, with his suite, drove 

 from the ground while the band was playing the National 



Anthem. 



THE CONVERSAZIONE. 



On the evening of the same day (Tuesday, Nov. loth), the 

 members of the Institute assembled, by invitation, at Moss 

 Park, the residence of G. W. Allan, Esq., Vice-President. 

 His Excellency the Governor-General was present, together 

 with a number of distinguished members of the present Govern- 

 ment. Refreshments were abundantly supplied to a very large 

 number of visitors; and various rooms on the first floor of the 

 mansion were severally devoted to the exhibition of works 

 of Art, Natural History, and rare Microscopic preparations. 

 Two papers were read, one by Professor "Wilson, of University 

 College, on " Some Associations of the Canadian and English 

 Maple ;" and the other by Paul Kane, Esq., entitled, " Notes 

 of a Trip to Lord Selkirk's Settlement on Red River, Hudson 

 Bay Company's Territory." Mr. Kane exhibited various 

 sketches in oil of many attractive scenes in North-Western 

 ]ife. Professor Wilson's paper we give at length below : — 



SOME ASSOCIATIONS OF THE CANADIAN AND ENGLISH 



MAPLE. 



i?^ Daniel Wilson, LL.D., Professor of History, University College, 

 Toronto. 



On this auspicious occasion, when the members of the 

 Canadian Institute assemble together under such unwonted 

 circumstances of social intercourse, it may, perhaps, be thought 

 pardonable to select a subject which admits of treatment more 

 in the recalling of some ancestral festive associations, than in 

 any new contribution to the scientific or literary acquisitions 

 which are presumed to constitute the attractions of our ordinary 

 meetings. With this object, therefore, our Canadian Maple 

 and its English congener have been selected, as a theme asso- 

 ciating some pleasant ideas of the old world with those of the 

 new. 



The ancient virtues ascribed to the English Maple appear to 

 have been derived by our ancestors from that hardy race of 

 Northmen, by whom it is no longer doubted that this continent 

 was visited, centuries before the adventurous barque of Columbus 

 touched the shores of the new world. The Ante-Columbian 

 discovery of Vinland by the Scandinavian voyagers of the tenth 

 century, and the recognition of that long lost land as part of 

 this continent, have naturally induced the American Archaeo- 

 logist to turn with curious interest to anything which may seem 

 to indicate the faintest trace of Scandinavian influence in the 

 monumental arts, or in the traditions of the country. In some 

 cases, indeed, as in that of the inscribed Deighton rock, it can 

 scarcely be doubted that the too-credulous antiquaiy of the new 

 world has made the wish father to the supposed discovery. 



On first arriving in Canada, and learning of the adoption, 

 apparently by universal consent, of the leaf of the Acer Erio- 

 carpon, or White Maple, as one of the emblems of Canada, I 

 was prepared to learn of some traditions or superstitious legends 

 connected with this tree, which, while they gave an Indian 

 origin to its native associations, might also possibly indicate 

 some faiut trace of the traditional links which are occasionally 

 found to connect widely severed races of the human family. 

 This hope, it would seem, is falaoious ; but the following genuine 

 Indian legend which I noted down from the recital of an 

 American missionary among the Chippawas of Lake Superior, 

 is interesting, as furnishing an indication that the gorgeous 

 crimson hues of the American Maple do occasionally attract 

 the attention of the wild Indian : — • 



The Chippawas believe that the mother of their tribe was a 

 woman whom a great Blanito made out of a tree which grew 

 by the banks of the river. She had three sons at a birth, the 

 first of whom became a beaver, and built his lodge by the 

 river; the second changed into a fish, and swimming swiftly 

 down the stream, disappeared in the great lake ; but the third, 

 when he grew up, became the father of the Chippawas. He 

 went oif at a certain time to hunt, and the Great Spirit met 

 him and gave him a bow and arrows, telling him to shoot the 

 first living thing he came to, and he would never want food 

 thereafter. The Indian wandered many days, and at length 

 returned toward his lodge, but he had seen no living thing. 

 His mother came out to meet him, and he told her what the 

 Great Spirit had said to him, and of his wandering many days 

 in vain. Thereupon she told him he had not fulfilled the 

 commands of the Great Spirit, and turning about, she fled 

 swiftly away. Then he remembered that this was the first 

 living thing he had seen, and drawing his bow he pierced her 

 with an arrow as she fled, and she immediately turned into a 

 maple tree; but its leaves were blood-red, as they still are 



