3. “On the Discovery of New Zealand,” by A. Eccles, F.R.C.S. It had been supposed that Tasman was the first discoverer of New Zealand, but lately a claim had been put forward that Arabic geographers were acquainted with the existence of New Zealand. The editor of “The English Mechanic” for December 3, 1869, p. 279, states, in answer to a correspondent, “Urban,” that various Arabic geographical works of the 13th and 14th centuries, many of which having been translated, as “El Ideesee,” by M. Jaubert, are to be found in the fine libraries of Vienna and Paris, as well as in the various Asiatic Ethnological Societies, both English and foreign, describe New Zealand as a large and very mountainous island in the farthest Southern Ocean, beyond and far south-east of both Ray (Borneo) and Bartailié (New Guinea), and as being uninhabited by man, and containing nothing but gigantic birds known as the “Seěmoah.” Some of the more important passages of the works are translated in Journals of the Royal Asiatic Society, the papers of the Ethnological, etc., Bull. de Soc. Asiatique, Journ. de Zoologie, Archiv. von Arch; Journ. de Soc. Archgie; Ann. Vien. Gesell., etc. The Chairman stated that he had been unable to find any similar mention in any work on New Zealand to which he had access; and recommended members who had friends in Vienna or Paris to write to them, in order that M. Jaubert's works might be searched.