SECOND SESSION, 
Eighth Meeting. 
FRIDAY EVENING, 15th NOVEMBER, 1861. 
The Rev. Professor Williamson, LL. D., Vice-President, in the chair. 
The chairman opened the proceedings by a short introductory address, in 
which he alluded to the recent origin of the Society, notwithstanding which, it had 
already struck its roots deeply into the soil, passed the period of youth, and grown 
up into a goodly tree, whose branches were spread far and wide. Already, he 
said, contributions and applications for membership were almost daily being re- 
ceived not only from various parts of Upper and Lower Canada and the adjoining 
States, but also from Britain, and France, and Italy, and Germany, and even our 
Australian colonies. And not only so. The Society, young as it was, had already 
acquired the maturity requisite to enable it to bring forth abundant fruit. Its con- 
tributions to science, recorded in the " Annals " of the Society, and in numerous 
scientific journals of Canada and Britain, were already well known, A Botanic 
Garden had also been established in Kingston, the first of the kind in Canada, and 
one that might be expected ere long not only to add to the range of scientific 
knowledge, but also to yield valuable economic results from the experiments that 
would be undertaken as to the plants suited to our climate. A public Herbarium 
was also in course of formation, to which, as in other countries, the student might 
repair to resolve his doubts in the determination of obscure species. At this season 
of the year, the plants which form the objects of the botanists study go to rest, so 
also the botanist himself withdraws from his pleasant and healthful researches in the 
fields and woods ; but, as there is no real rest in the case of the plant, as the tis- 
sues go on developing, and the juices are being elaborated even beneath the snows 
of winter, so the botanist also does not now pass into a state of inactivity. Our 
winter meetings begin, the members come together, and an opportunity is afforded 
of elaborating and making known the results of the summer's work. The chair- 
man concluded by alluding to the valuable aid that had been derived from Prof. 
Gray and Sir Wm. Logan in forwarding the objects of the Society, and expressed 
