Report on the Meeting of the British Association at Montreal

Abstract

New York, 17 th September 1884.—In giving in my Report as the Delegate of the Edinburgh Geological Society to the Meeting of the British Association, which was held at Montreal from 26th August to 3rd September 1884, I shall confine myself only to a few leading topics of interest. I may premise that the visit of the Association for the first time to a city out of Britain, proved most successful, and will doubtless lead to other excursions, tending to knit together the vast cosmopolitan world of science. The Canadians warmly welcomed the members of the British Association, and the Canadian Mining Review, published at Ottawa during this month, alluded to the Montreal Meeting as ‶the great event of the year 1884 in the Dominion of Canada.″ That journal likewise pointed out the practical advantage of such meetings, by their bringing scientific criticism to bear on the countries visited. Thus it proceeds:—‶At the meeting in Montreal, in the course of a review of our numerous rich mineral indications, a serious defect was brought to light by one of the leading geologists and mining authorities in England″—Dr Le Neve Foster—‶namely, that Canada, of all the colonies, is the most destitute of information concerning mineral reports and statistics available for reference.″ I may add that it has no lack of admirable geological museums,—the beautiful Peter Redpath Museum at Montreal, the Geological Survey’s Museum at Ottawa, and the University Museum at Toronto, being particularly rich and well arranged. In the Geological Section at the