Selwyn House School - Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR 1955-1956 23 George Thomson made a generous loan to this exhibit, of seven gold coins. The most impressive was that of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. It was a A ducat piece 1V2 inches in diameter, issued in 1915. George's other coins, all of interest, covered France, Turkey, Austria, the United States, and Canada. Lack of space prevents a detailed account of them. It was the best exhibit of the kind which we ever had. Ralph Walker lent us forty-seven valuable silver and copper coins. These covered the reigns of the Georges in Britain, Queen Victoria, Edward VII, and Elizabeth ll. A very interesting one was marked 'Lima' It is an historical fact that, during the reign of George I, Admiral Anson in a voyage round the world, 1740- 44, captured Spanish ships near South America containing treasure in gold and silver, which was later converted into coin and marked 'Lima'. Ralph's coin dates from this event. His Byzantine coin of the Imperial family of Heraclius, VII century, was extremely interesting. Robert Aikman lent a rare American coin the size and weight of a silver dollar, but it appeared to be made of copper. It was dated 1796. Robert Hallett brought us a collection of European coins covering Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, France and Italy. Stephen Parker enlarged the collection by some excellent examples from Cyprus, Egypt, Austria, and five other European countries and a medal commemo- rating the 5th. Congress of the Chambers of Commerce of the Empire, 1903. David Stollmeyer contributed three ancient Greek coins, one dating from the time of Alexander the Great, about 331 B.C. While we were enjoying the coins, David Stollmeyer brought in the skin of a water snake, called a ICamoodie'. It looked like an anaconda from tropical America. It was eight feet long and taxed the space of the small library upstairs. Its colour, a lovely grey, was a background for a wonderful design in white. Draped over the book cases it was very handsome. We certainly never had anything like it in the library before. David also showed a very interesting furry skin of a small antelope. It appeared to belong to the Royal Antelope species, which stands only ten inches from the shoulder, and comes from Africa. It was most unusual - so tiny and yet so beautiful to look at. Crozier Lucas kindly showed a horrid-looking tail ofa poisonous snake. During this month Maxi Ferro exhibited some good stamps from France, the series of portrait stamps was specially interesting. Rene Desmarais also had a group of stamps of different European countries. John Harding had been to Algonquin Park and brought back various wood- land items - a branch of a tree destroyed by woodpeckers, and amongst other things a twig showing the work of the beavers. This inspired the boys to spend hours of the fine autumn days on the mountain to look for possible treasures. Peter McConnell, Ronald Graham, and Victor Vickers all found unfinished Indian arrows and spearheads. Michael Berrill exhibited a particularly good collection of fossils. This prompted George Caird to look for fossils on the Mountain. He found a large bit of rock with many fossil Ishells' embedded in it, and his brother John also found fossils. We soon became rich in fossils. Jon Scott showed a collection of geological specimens which made an absorbing study as they were very well labelled.

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22 SELWYN HOUSE SCHOOL MAGAZINE Teddy Coumantoros came back with many treasures from Italy and the Mediter- ranean and generously let us exhibit a model of a Venetian gondola, complete with a gondolier, and with pictures of Venice. He also lent us shells from Mediterranean shores, sea urchins and starfish. These were kindly made ready to exhibit by Mr. Moodey and Mr. Howes. The comparison with the shells from the Atlantic coast was extremely interesting. The 'drills', the limpets and the sea urchins were the most pronounced in difference, Mr. Howes lending us starfish and sea urchins from the Atlantic to help in comparing the specimens. In September Mrs. Jacqueline Berrill allowed us to show a facsimile copy of the Royal Society's Charter Book, containing the signatures of the 'Founders, Patrons, 8. Fellows' of the Society from T662 to I95O. The writing of King Charles ll, his brother James, Duke of York, and his nephew, Prince Rupert, was noted with great interest, the latter so closely connected to Canada in the founding of the Company of Adventurers into Hudson's Bay . We were most grateful to Dr. and Mrs. Berrill for lending us the 'Charter'. In October John Harding suddenly appeared with a collection of stuffed birds on a tree. Fortunately they were in a glass case which protected them from the intense interest which all the members of the library felt when studying them. The Baltimore Oriole was the favourite, with the Goldfinch a close second. The bird exhibit was followed by the appearance of a Viking ship with ten Viking warriors. This created a great sensation. It possessed a catapult on the deck, which was found to be very useful for shooting buckshot all over the library. Where the shot come from remains a mystery. The ship was a kind loan from Andrew McNaughton. During this month Kerry Martin lent his photographs of the sea at Metis which were well taken, and enjoyed by everyone. Four essays were submitted by the travellers of the summer, Peter Vodstrcil, Nicolas Kairis, Robert Aikman, and John Chamard. Peter's excellent essay on his visit to Austria described Vienna, Salzburg and Berchtesgaden, fthe latter, though in Germany, is only ten miles from Salzburg.D Here Peter made a study of Hitler's villa and his escape 'bunker', of which he gave o mop in his essay. He also gave an entertaining description of the palace of the Archbishop Sitticus near Salzburg where, in the XVII century the palace fountains were not only beautiful to look at, but were useful in clearing the minds of the guests after a generous banquet. Nicolas Kairis' account of his visit to Greece and to Italy was extremely well told. The description of the ancient stronghold, the home of his ancestors, was specially intriguing. His photographs, illustrating the beautiful Grecian surround- ings, were much appreciated. Bob Aikman's lively and interesting narrative of the odventuring of the 'FIVE' in England, led by Mr. Davies, was quite enthralling. Specially noted was the surprise at Durham of a meeting with old friends in a group from Lower Canada College. London was a fitting climax to Aikman's stirring tale. John Chomard, who has a real 'flair' for writing, gave o description in his essay of a journey from Montreal to Murray Bay. In a few brief pages he noted the items of most interest and inspired a desire to travel down the river at once. November was devoted to an exhibition of coins. Michael Berrill brought in a collection of these, dating from Britain during the Roman occupation. There was one amongst them which attracted much attention. It dated from the time of the Emperor Claudius, about A. D. 43. There were others of an earlier date, but not as clearly marked.

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24 SELWYN HOUSE SCHOOL MAGAZINE The fossils made David Laing think of real shells, and he brought in a beautiful scallop shell, four cockles, a sand dollar and a starfish. Daniel Javitch was good enough to bring a sword to show us at this time. He had acquired it in England. It had been used in the Crimean war in the British navy, and was so enormous that it was difficult to lift. This was fortunate, as otherwise we might have had some casualties. During the month of December 119551 the books were cleared from the shelves upstairs and packed in cartons preparatory to the move to the shelving in the new dining hall. On January 6th 1956, six of the older boys transported the books to their new destination. The loads were extremely heavy, and many thanks are due to the boys who accomplished this work so well. The shortest route to the dining hall was down the icy steps of the fire escape, yet not a volume of the nearly 4000 books was dropped on the ice. The boys who accomplished this move were Maxi Ferro, David Phillips, Robin Gilbert, Robert Hallett, Brian Dodd, and Bill Pedoe. Special thanks are due to the latter as he is now at Upper Canada College and was on a holiday in Montreal, and generously gave us his time. Maxi Ferro was of great assistance during the Christmas holidays in helping to arrange the books on their new shelving. January 11th. was the first day the library was opened downstairs. One of the very fine display cases was used to exhibit a valuable collection of stamps belonging to Maxi. This exhibition was outstanding and was much appreciated. A 'Ship' exhibit was opened on January 26th., when the second display case was ready. We were fortunate enough to have models ranging from the native, almost pre-historic 'dug-out' canoe to the modern battleship, even to the nuclear submarine. The first ship shown was made and painted by Peter Terroux. It was an excellent example of a P. T. boat with four torpedoes, three oerlikon mountings, and two double anti-aircraft guns. This ship can travel with great speed, and has high manoeuvring ability. Robert Johnston lent a splendid model of an aircraft carrier. Peter Martin and Eric Garland both brought models of the U.S.S. Missouri. Peter lent also a torpedo boat. Ross Brydon appeared with a destroyer and Geoffrey Fisher with an aircraft-carrier. lt was specially interesting to have John Harding's small, but perfect model of the three-masted schooner Flying Cloud , the fastest ship of its time 118501. He also lent a model of 'dug-out' canoe, the original of this is made from the mahogany tree and still used in the Dominican Islands. As a contrast to this tiny model with the small figure and its paddle, was the great model of a 'Dreadnought', a battleship of the Lion type of 1910. This ship was on loan to the exhibit from Stephen Wells, whose grandfather had made it. it was constructed of wood and iron, and very well built. The length was 2 ft. 8 in. and it was 7 in. wide. The height of the mast was 2 ft. 3 in. This type of ship was used in the Great War, 1914-18. The ship was manned by a crew prepared by Peter Terroux, originally soldiers, they were converted into sailors for the express purpose of giving the proper scale to the ship. They were most satis- factory. This ship was so perfect in every way that it was difficult to keep from examining the equipment in detail. Fortunately, it fitted into the new display case and was thus protected.