Valuable
collections in natural history have been forwarded to the institution by
such observers as the late Hon. Donald Gunn, the late Mr. Joseph
Fortescue, and Mr. Roderick Ross Macfarlane.
Mr. William Barnston, a son of the Mr. Barnston, already mentioned, and
a chief factor at Norway House, about 1854, was very fond of the
cultivation of flowers and the study of botany, and some very valuable
specimens of natural history in the British museum are said to have been
of his procuring.
LIBRARIES.
Collections of books were a great means of providing knowledge and
contributing to amusement in the isolated northern trading posts.
The Red River library had its headquarters in St. Andrew's parish, and
was for circulation in the Red River Settlement. It seems to have been
chiefly maintained by donations of books by retired Hudson's Bay Company
officers and other settlers. The Council of Assiniboia once gave a
donation of L50 sterling for the purchase of books to be added to the
library. There was one characteristic of this library that it contained
in its catalogue very few works of fiction.
LITERARY CLUBS.
In addition to libraries we find that at a later date in the history of
the Settlement, literary clubs were formed.
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