ANKALS OF THE 
inform you that I will be very glad to correspond for botanical specimens with the Kingston Society. As soon as 
you will have given a favorable answer to this letter, I will send you a large packet of specimens of this country ; 
in return, you will very much gratify me by forwarding such interesting plants as Onagrarice, Cruci/erce, C'alycan- 
thaceoB, of which many kinds and species are peculiar to North America. 
I am, Sir, your most obedient, 
DR. EUG. FOURNIER, 
Vice- Secretary of the Botanical Society of France, 
20, Rue Bonaparte a Paris. 
To Prqkessor Lawson, Secretary of the Botanical Society, at Kingston, Canada. 
COMMUNICATIONS FROM DR. BERTHOLD SEEMANN. 
Professor Lawson read letters from Dr. Seemann, who had lately returned to 
Europe from an Exploration of the Fiji Islands. The letters were accompanied by 
a copy of the " Bonplandia," a botanical journal, ably edited by Dr. Seemann, and 
containing an article on the Botanical Society of Canada, of which the following 
translation has been prepared by Mr. John Machar, A. M., a Fellow of the 
Society : 
The Botanical Society of Canada. — Were the Spanish adventurers, who, after a bootless quest for imagined 
treasure, cried out in their disappointment " Aqui nada," to visit Canada now, after the lapse of three hundred 
years, they would probably see cause to choose another exclamation than the one which, if tradition is to be behev- 
ed, gave to a land of so great promise so unpropitious a name. In every direction signs of prosperity and progress 
meet the traveller's eye. Steamships of prodigious size and. power maintain a regular and rapid communication 
with the ports of the old world. Railroads traverse the country in all directions. The white sails of countless 
vessels enliven. the great inland waters, and what was erewhile regarded as the daring feat of a reckless Indian, 
to slioot the rapids of Lachine in his birch bark canoe, is now part of the daily route of Canadian steamboats. 
With the aid of the ever-increasing Teutonic element, surmounting the obstacles afforded by the early circum- 
stances of the country, * * * Canada marches on with giant strides towards a prosperous future. Edifices, 
which can challenge Europe to surpass them, adorn the streets of new cities, arisen as if by magic from the soiL 
The bridges spanning the Niagara, the Ottawa, and the mighty stream of the St Lawrence, are with reason 
counted among the wonders of the world. Science, now pioneer Uke, striding on in advance of the arts, now, 
singularly enough, straggling behind with halting step, has found here a congenial home — a hearty welcome. To 
this the rapidly rising universities, the well known school system, the Institut C'anadien, containing in itself the 
germ of a national academy, the Natural History Society of Montreal, amply testify. And now to this noble 
array a new union has been added, under the name of the Botanical Society of Canada — a union to which we can 
extend a hearty welcome, not as botanists alone, but even as Germans. 
Between the inhabited parts of North America and the inhospitable regions of the Arctic circle there lies a 
broad belt of land, which has hitherto been to the botanist almost a terra incognita. In Canada, therefore, a Bo- 
tanical Society has for its operations a most extensive Geld, whereon many a (new) plant buds, blooms and withers 
unnamed, unknown — whereon many a species attains its northernmost Umits, and awaits the hour when some 
savant shall record its discovery in the annals of the science. 
Such facts as these, more even than that of 93 members having given in their 4idherence to the society on the 
very day of its foundation, encourage us to hope that in this new body we may expect something more than one 
of those ephemeral unions of local savans, who exhaust all their strength in the production of annals which are 
never read by the learned, whose perpetual contentions as to who shall fill their petty offices make them the 
laughing-stock of their fellow-citizens, and whose scientific investigations, because they do. not come under the 
notice of the general public, are seldom conducted with the care exercised by those who know that their papers 
will not only be read beyond their own locality, but perused with interest by the learned of other lands. We in 
Europe will watch with interest the progress and the labors of the Canadian society, and we shall ever be curious 
tp learn the result of each new expedition into the unknown region. The very circumstances of the infant society 
