all the principal results of my excavations had been published without my permission or consent, and that thus a most flagrant breach of faith and trust had been committed.

Here are the facts of the case.

About three years ago, when examining some geological sections near the gorge of the Ashley, I found there a man of the name of A. McKay, usually working as a labourer at the flax-mills in that locality, but, having once been a gold-miner, he had been instructed to drive a gallery upon a supposed coal seam.

As this person appeared to be very fond of geology, and to have a great thirst to learn something, he was very anxious that I should take him with me on one of my journeys to look after the horses, etc., and upon his earnest solicitations I engaged him shortly afterwards for such purpose.

Returning from a journey lasting some months, during which I had found him zealous, I employed him in menial work at the museum, and sent him afterwards to collect fossils at the Waipara; during all that time I had been lending him books and doing everything in my power to help him on.

When I had collected the necessary funds for the expenses of the exploration to be undertaken in the Sumner Cave, I took him there with another working man I had engaged for the purpose, to make the necessary excavations under my own directions, and, as my report shows, superintending the work myself, generally going twice a week down to the cave to direct their proceedings in every respect.

Thus not only were all the principal discoveries, with one exception, made under my own eye, or I may say with my own hands, but all the measurements were also made by myself, and all the notes written on the spot; not trusting any one else with these matters.

When there was sufficient material collected, I took the same with me for deposition in the museum, properly labelled, and only in the last week, when great quantities of kitchen middens, both of Maori and moa-hunter origin, were obtained near the entrance of the cave, were they brought up together at the termination of the work.

As I thought I could place full confidence in the man's honesty, I explained to him always the nature of every object discovered (he did not know the difference between the bones of a bird and of a mammal), but, to give him real interest in the work, I not only spoke unreservedly before him about the results obtained, with scientific friends I took down during the time the work proceeded, but gave him also freely my views about the whole bearings of these interesting excavations, and when the work was finished, and he asked my permission to write me some notes on the same, I—taking an interest in his advancement—encouraged him to do so, which notes, three or four pages in quarto, if I remember rightly, after reading I tore up as of no value to me.