7 
The construction, the features, the products, the deficien¬ 
cies, the wants of this, countiy demand, and must exact, 
scientific innovation to suit, adapt, repair or supply it and 
them ; and if within the recollection of some present, a Ful¬ 
ton, unestimatod in his native city, lived to see his bathed 
projects ripened in a foreign land, and the waters of the 
western hemisphere crowded with vessels incessantly propelled 
by the impulse of a slighted mechanism and a distiusted 
might, is it presumptuous to imagine that this genial southern 
sun may hasten into birth some unrevealed combination of 
forces, the rudiment of which, as yet, lies in the brain of one 
amongst us ; hitherto unsmiled on by the favour of his own 
compatriots, ungladdened by the approving voice of his own 
countrymen ? 
This is surely then a time when every effort to rivet atten¬ 
tion on the culture of art and science should be heartily 
seconded. A strong desire for know'ledge is manifested in 
the foundation of our University—the establishment of libra¬ 
ries, and the formation of the numerous societies springing 
up in our towms, their suburbs, and the more distant districts. 
All this points to prove that the barren acquisition of money 
does not satisfy the cravings of a people who possess a com¬ 
prehension beyond that of the method of acquiring it; and 
that if such appetite be once created that people will demand 
something more than simple didactic information. 
As to the benefits to be derived from the establishment of 
this institution, they are incalculable, and an attempted enu¬ 
meration of them would be alike unnecessaiy and incomplete. 
AVliat rather must they not be when an account of the natural 
and physical resources of the country is untouched by any 
hand we may strictly call our own ; when the different 
branches which treat of the mineral stores hidden within the 
earth, the vegetation which luxuriates, the insects, reptiles, 
animals which move upon its surface, the fish w'hich swim in 
its waters, the fowls which float in its air, invoke especial 
systematic notice ; when the annals of atmospheric and clim¬ 
atic changes continue unnoted, and when a faithful narration 
of the few but eventful years of the occupation of this soil by 
Europeans is unwritten ? 
