the cell as a motor. The study of each aspect or branch of the subject must assist in the development of our knowledge of the others, and, no doubt, will lead us onward toward that goal of modern research, the knowledge of life.

Professor Struthers, in complimenting Mr. Smith upon his admirable paper, said that to him Mr. Smith's mathematical investigations and his idea of the dynamical properties of a cell was an entirely novel departure in physiological science. Up till the present day physiologists had explained muscular action by contraction-that was putting the shortening of the muscular fibre as the cause of muscular power. Mr. Smith's mathematical demonstration now placed the contraction of muscle in the position of the effect of the internal forces acting in muscle cells, causing expansion crosswise. The inquiries of Mr. Smith would probably start a series of investigations which would form a novel departure in physiological science. Aberdeen might be proud of a man of Mr. Smith's inventive genius, and if in this busy age leisure were allowed him to develop his ideas, very valuable results might be expected.

May 18, 1891.-JAMES MOIR, LL.D., President, in the Chair.

Mr. JAMES BRYCE, M.P. for the South Division of Aberdeen, delivered an address entitled "A Recent View of Canada; with Remarks on some Colonial Questions."

A Recent View of Canada; with Remarks on some Colonial Questions. By JAMES BRYCE, M.P., D.C.L.

Ladies and gentlemen--I acceded with very great pleasure to the request which the committee of the Society made that I should deliver an address here, and I may say, Mr Chairman, with reference to your remarks, that I did so with all the more pleasure that the occasion and the subject were to be of a wholly unpolitical nature. If you will allow me for a moment to take you into confidence, I will say that the position of a member who is elected by one political party, and who only meets his constituents upon political occasions, is not altogether a happy one, because he feels a too constant sense of his political character. He cannot, of course, look for the presence at the meetings which he holds of any but those who are in political agreement with him; and, therefore, he is rather cut off from making the acquaintance, and coming into personal relations with, a very large part of his constituents, whom, nevertheless, he represents, and whom he desires to represent, in the full sense of the word. I hope I may say, and I say this not for myself only, but for the members of the House of Commons generally, that although we are the choice of one political party we consider ourselves, once placed in the post of representative, to have a duty and pleasure to consult the interests of the whole community, and to try to render whatever services may lie in our power to members of both political parties. And, therefore, I welcome with unfeigned pleasure any opportunity of meeting residents and citizens in Aberdeen entirely apart from any question of political agreement or disagreement; and in selecting this particular subject, I thought it was well to select a subject which would not only be unpolitical but also have some measure of