348 Proceedings of the 



liberality and assistance of the Company. Their own nume- 

 rous explorations, their extensive geographical surveys, and 

 the able and ready help which they have given to the search 

 after Franklin and his crew, are instances which it is 

 scarcely necessary to recal to the mind of the reader. I 

 have, however, had special opportunity of seeing the liberal 

 mode in which they extend their assistance to scientific ob- 

 jects, on the occasion of a botanical expedition being sent out 

 a few years ago by an association formed in this city, to pro- 

 cure seeds of new and valuable hardy trees and plants from 

 Oregon and the neighbouring districts. I acted as secretary 

 to that association, and conducted the negotiations with the 

 Hudson's Bay Company for securing their assistance to the 

 collector (Mr Jeffrey). The liberal spirit in which I then 

 found that the Company looked at things impressed me not 

 less than the extent of the power they possessed. But there 

 were other things which struck me with equal force. In 

 studying the route followed by Jeffrey, I had the enormous 

 extent of their territory forced strongly upon my attention — 

 thousands of thousands of miles still inhabited only by the 

 " wild ;" and all this territory dotted over by the trading or 

 hunting stations of the Company. I found also, in the occa- 

 sional correspondence I had with the officers stationed at some 

 of these remote posts, that they were obliging and intelli- 

 gent. I imagined that many of them (from their hunting 

 propensities, which may have led them to the life they fol- 

 lowed) must have an instinctive taste for natural history ; and 

 when I put all this together, I felt that here was a great oppor- 

 tunity for enlarging our knowledge of the natural history of a 

 considerable portion of the globe, which was lying fallow only 

 because no one advanced his hand to seize it. 



Seeing that no one else did so, I resolved to try what I 

 could do myself, and I applied to the Governor and directors 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company for permission to circulate 

 throughout the posts scattered over their territory a paper 

 which I prepared, entitled, " Instructions for Collecting Objects 

 of Natural History ;" in which, in few words, I gave general 

 directions for collecting, preserving, and sending them home ; 

 and concluded by requesting those officers of the Hudson's Bay 



