desire to make that membership a test of some intellectual effort, and consequently more prized by those who were allowed sooner or later to enter. It would have been quite possible for the society to make itself a sort of literary or scientific picnic by allowing every man or woman who had, or believed they had, some elementary scientific or other knowledge to enter its ranks, and have the consequent advantages of cheap railway fares and other subsidiary advantages on certain occasions, but its promoters did not think that would best subserve the special objects they had in view. At all events, none of them could have been prompted by any desire to create a sort of literary aristocracy. Indeed, one would like to know how any one in his senses could believe for a moment that any institution of learning could be founded with exclusive tendencies in these times, in this or any other country! If there is an intelligent democracy anywhere it is the Republic of Letters. It may be aristocratic in the sense that there are certain men and women who have won fame and stand on a pedestal above their fellows, but it is the world, not of a class, but of all ranks and conditions, that has agreed to place them on that pedestal as a tribute to their genius which has made people happier, wiser and better, has delighted and instructed the artisan as well as the noble. For twelve years then the Royal Society has continued to persevere in its work; and thanks to the encouragement given it by the government of Canada it has been able, year by year, to publish a large and handsome volume of the proceedings and transactions of its meetings. No other country in the world can exhibit volumes more creditable on the whole in point of workmanship than those of this society. The papers and monographs that have appeared embrace a wide field of literature--the whole range of archæological, ethnological, historical, geographical, biological, mathematical and physical studies. The volumes now are largely distributed throughout Canada--among the educated and thinking classes--and are sent to every library, society, university and learned institution of note in the world, with the hope of making the Dominion better known. The countries where they are placed for purposes of reference are these: The United States: every State of the Union and District of Columbia, Newfoundland, Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Guatemala, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and Ireland, Ecuador, Italy, Greece, Norway and Sweden, Spain, South Africa, Germany, Roumania, Argentine Republic, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Mauritius, Denmark.