HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
459 
In this list there is a total of fifty-one members, of whom 
eight still survive, and among these, two, J. B. Hegan and 
G. F. Matthew were members of the Steinhammer Club, out 
of which the Society grew. 
In the list will be found the names of many men who took an 
active part in the public affair's of the city and province, and 
others who rose to eminence at the Bar and in the medical 
profession. 
One of the first steps taken by the new Society was the 
formation of a museum. For this purpose they purchased by 
subscription the fine collection of fossil ferns that had recently 
been made by Mr. Chas. Fred. Hartt, one of the members, 
of the Steinhammer Club, and received as a donation from the 
club their collections of minerals and fossils, providing for the 
same a set of cases. 
In those days the monthly meeting was the only public 
record of the work of the Society. Lectures were then given 
and original papers presented and read. The doctors^ (phy- 
sicians) and the educators were the classes most prominent in the 
Society’s work in those early days, though the engineers and 
members of the civil service helped. Notable among the early 
contributors were Doctors Sinclair, Hamilton and Fiske, and 
among the educators Professor L. W. Bailey and Mr. E. 
Manning. Among the engineers was Gilbert Murdoch, who 
wrote on the meteorology of the district, and whose widow in 
the later years of the Society’s existence, gave a large legacy to 
its funds. Among others who contributed lectures and papers 
at the monthly meetings were Robert Matthew and I, Allen 
Jack, each of whom held the office of Recording Secretary; also 
C. F. Hartt and G. F. Matthew. 
One of the most zealous members of the Society in its first 
year was Moses H. Perley, Imperial Commissioner of Fisheries, 
who by liberal gifts of money, books and a paper on Newfound- 
land, sought to promote its advancement. He died within a 
year after the Society was instituted. 
Much of the field work and many of the articles read before 
the Society in its early years were the work of the Steinhammer 
