Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/105

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NCE more has the Dominion of Canada invited the British Association for the Advancement of Science to hold one of the annual meetings of its members within the Canadian territory, and for a second time has the association had the honor and pleasure of accepting the proffered hospitality. In doing so the association has felt that if by any possibility the scientific welfare of a locality is promoted by its being the scene of such a meeting, the claims should be fully recognized of those who, though not dwelling in the British Isles, are still inhabitants of that Greater Britain, whose prosperity is so intimately connected with the fortunes of the mother country. Here, especially, as loyal subjects of one beloved sovereign, the sixtieth year of whose beneficent reign has just been celebrated with equal rejoicing in all parts of her empire, as speaking the same tongue, and as in most instances connected by the ties of one common parentage, we are bound together in all that can promote our common interests. There is, in all probability, nothing that will tend more to advance those interests than the diffusion of science in all parts of the British Empire, and it is toward this end that the aspirations of the British Association are ever directed, even if, in many instances, the aim may not be attained.

We are, as already mentioned, indebted to Canada for previous hospitality, but we must also remember that, since the time when we last assembled on this side of the Atlantic, the Dominion has provided the association with a president, Sir William Dawson, whose name is alike well known in Britain and America, and whose reputation is indeed world-wide. We rejoice that we have still among us the pioneer of American geology, who, among other discoveries, first made us acquainted with the "Air Breathers of the Coal," the terrestrial or, more properly, arboreal saurians of the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia coal measures.

On our last visit to Canada, in 1884, our place of assembly was Montreal, a city which is justly proud of her McGill University; today we meet within the buildings of another of the universities of this vast Dominion, and in a city the absolute fitness of which for such a purpose must have been foreseen by the native Indian tribes when they gave to a small aggregation of huts upon this spot the name of Toronto—"the place of meetings." Our gathering this