Notes

Abstract

McGILL University, Montreal, has long held the lead in the cultivation of natural science among the colleges of Canada, and has already large collections, which are still further to be increased by the liberality of Mr. Redpath, a member of the Board of Governors, and Principal Dawson. Mr. Redpath proposes to erect on the College grounds, and on a site which will harmonise with the arrangement of the existing buildings, a stately and beautiful edifice for a museum of geology and natural history, primarily for the use of the professors and students of the college, but also for the benefit of the public generally. The building is to be detached and practically fireproof, and while it will be an ornament to the college grounds, will be fully up to the present idea of museum buildings in regard to space, light, and means for study and illustration. It will accommodate the whole of the present collections of the University, and will enable them for the first time to be fully accessible to students. In connection with Mr. Redpath's gift, Principal Dawson purposes to present to the University the whole of his private collections in geology, embracing the types of the species which have been described by him in his papers and other publications. In some departments of the geology of the Dominion, as in the fossils of the Pleistocene and Carboniferous, and in the geology of the Maritime Provinces, these collections are believed to be the most important ex ant.