BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. 209 



exists in most of the forests of the Indian islands, but especially in those of 

 Sumatra and the Malayan Peninsula. Its produce is, however, inferior to 

 that of Bengal, and especially of Pegu, which countries chiefly supply the 

 large consumption of the market of China, while the lac of the Indian 

 islands is principally confined to home consumption. The Coccus lacca is 

 found chiefly on the hilly parts of Hindostan, on both sides of the Ganges. 

 A white wax kind of lac has lately been found near Madras.] — Editor. 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. 



A meeting was held in Queen's College, Kingston, on Dec. 7, to consider 

 the propriety of organising a Botanical Society. There was a large attend- 

 ance .of gentlemen. The Rev. Principal Leitch, D.D., was called to the 

 chair, and announced that the object of the meeting was to consider the 

 propriety of originating a Botanical Society, having for its object the inves- 

 tigation of the Canadian Flora. Universities (he said) do not discharge all 

 their functions by merely teaching the acknowledged truths of literature 

 and science : it is a part of their duty to organise and instigate original 

 inquiry in the different departments of knowledge. Systematic research 

 must not only be directed, but to a large extent carried out, by the personal 

 labour of those who are connected with universities. This is especially the 

 case in a comparatively new country, where amateur labourers are few, and 

 scientific appliances not generally available. In a new country the prose- 

 cution of scientific research is needful, for various reasons : we have here 

 commenced at the right point. Industrial production and commerce are all 

 important to a new country ; and botany, as now pursued, yields to no 

 other science in its bearings on field industry and other useful arts of life. 

 The country, too, is comparatively unexplored. The shores of the St. 

 Lawrence, along which settlements have existed from an early period, have 

 no doubt yielded up most of their botanical treasures to travellers and 

 residents ; but we have still an extensive back country that is compara- 

 tively unexplored. There is ground, therefore, for the establishment of a 

 Botanical Society, for we have here the great stimulus of being able to add 

 to existing knowledge. In old countries a botanist may long pursue his 

 studies, not, indeed, without great benefit to science, but without having 

 his labours rewarded by meeting with anything new, with plants that 

 had not been collected and described by his predecessors in the science. 

 But here there is room for new discovery : the student may go forth to the 

 woods, and hope, sooner or later, to set eyes upon a plant which no human 

 eye has seen before. His name, it may be, will become associated with it, 

 and thus a permanent record of his discovery will be inscribed in the book 

 of science. All sciences have not such advantages : some have not the 

 same direct appeal to commerce ; some may be as well pursued in other 



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