appeared to have been disarticulated before being finally deposited, as no two bones were found which lay in such a position as to warrant their reference to the same individual moa. Most of the tibial bones were not found lying in a horizontal position, but inclined at all angles and so locked in the deposit one by the other, or by the other larger bones of the leg, that the extraction of one of them almost invariably involved the destruction of one or more lying contiguous to it.

Although at first sight the bones appeared as a confused mass, yet there proved to be some order in the mode of their occurrence. In the eastern end of the paddock most of the metatarsal bones were found. Tibiæ were most abundant in the middle part, and femora at the western end. Where the bed was thickest the pelvic bones formed its upper part and were universally in a crushed and highly decomposed condition. Vertebræ, toe bones, and occasionally bones of the head, were found from top to bottom of the bed. In the clay bed which at the western end of the paddock overlaid the bones, vertebræ and toe bones were of frequent occurrence, and in this horizon was found a metatarsus with the toe bones complete. The metatarsus was lying horizontally in the clay bed, while the toes were sunk in the clay in a vertical position.

In the comparatively small area of this paddock, which was less than 30 square feet, there must have been present skeletons or portions of skeletons of no less than thirty birds. To all appearance the deposit is a most extensive one, the thickest part of it extending north-east from the northern bank of the creek; how far it extends in this or in the opposite direction on the southern bank of the creek, indications at the surface afford no means of determining.

On the southern bank of the creek the bone-bed is not so thick, and, following the water-course upwards, it passes into a bed of peaty lignite without bones, but a few feet beyond this bones are present in the lignite where it crosses the water channel, and is exposed at the base of a low cliff bounding the upper end of a deep gulch, which is rapidly being cut back towards the source of the creek. Followed till disappearing under the northern bank, the bones in the lignite increase from an occasional one till they form a bed about 8 inches thick, the lignite increasing to about double that thickness, but being without bones in its upper part. In the peaty lignite the bones proved quite as much crushed, and much more fragile than where they were imbedded in the clay; in fact, the vertebræ and other bones of open texture were little more than discernible in the lignite, while the leg bones were, though apparently in good condition, so brittle that scarcely any could be got out without breakage. As there appeared to be no difference in the species imbedded in the lignite and in

the clay, I excavated but a small paddock in the lignite, and getting nothing more than I had already obtained in a better condition from the first paddock, I did not think it necessary to continue the work of excavation.

Of the moa bones collected, all of them seem to be referable to not more than two species; and of these the bones of Dinornis elephantopus certainly constitute nine-tenths of the whole.

The remains of other birds were very rare in the bone-bed, belonging, with the exception of a few fragments, to Harpagornis moorei. All the bones of this species that were strong enough to resist the pressure of the overlying deposit are beautifully preserved. The only part which has suffered damage from this cause is the skull, which, occupying an interspace between two large moa bones, managed to escape total destruction.

A curious feature in the mode of occurrence of these Harpagornis bones is that all those of the leg and wing were found with their greatest length vertical in the bone-bed. This was also noticeable in the case of most of the immature moa bones.

Finding that there was but small probability of finding the skeleton of an individual moa by itself, and equally little being the hope of securing the material to construct one, I had to be contented with making a selection of the larger leg bones and such vertebræ ribs and toe bones as were met with during the progress of the excavation.

I have already mentioned that the bone-bed was covered to some depth by a deposit of gravel, clay, and loamy soil, and that it rested on a bed of well-worn gravel the thickness of which could not be ascertained at the place where the bones were found.

From a little south of the Motanau River to Stonyhurst, a distance of seven miles, these gravels overlying tertiary strata form between the coast range and the shore line a table-land elevated 200 to 300 feet above the sea. On the seaward side this is bounded by a line of high cliffs washed by the tide at high water. Besides the Motanau River, there are three smaller streams which rising on the western break through the eastern ridge of the coast range and flow across these flats in narrow channels, which are now so deeply cut that until an elevation of the coast-line takes place, they have no power to cut them deeper. A number of smaller streams rising on the flats or commencing from the slopes of the neighbouring ranges, have near the coast-line cut deep channels quite to the base of the sea cliffs. The deep narrow gulches thus formed do not as yet extend across the whole breadth of the flats, but terminate abruptly in a cliff beyond which there is no defined water-course, and as a rule no permanent stream. North of Boundary Creek, which reaches the sea three miles north of Motanau, the

surface of the flats undulates in low rolling downs, and one or two isolated hills stand above the general level. Close past the southern side of one of these hills runs the little creek in the banks of which the moa bones are found. Just abreast of the little hill the creek breaks the surface of the flat and plunges into the deeper channel, which it cuts through the gravels, and further down its course into the underlying tertiary strata. Along this and other creeks numerous sections show that a heavy deposit of well-rounded gravel of uniform size overlies the tertiary marine beds. The gravels are parted 20 or 30 feet from their base by sandy clays, which at many places contain trunks of trees or pass into beds of impure peaty lignite. This is the horizon of the moa bones. Above this lies an indefinite thickness of gravel and silt, variable on account of having been unequally denuded in different localities.

Professor Haast's researches at Glenmark appear to have led him to the conclusion that there the moa bones occurred in three different horizons. These in descending order are:—

In trying to correlate the Motanau bone-bed with either of these it is at once apparent that this can only be done with No. 2 or 3.

The character of the deposits forming No. 2 agrees well, both as regards the material and the sequence, with the Motanau beds; but the alluvial deposits of the Omihi Valley show not the least sign of having been denuded further than by the excavation of the present creek beds, while the Motanau flats, especially towards the northern end, have been so far denuded that the surface forms low rolling downs with here and there a low isolated hill, of which an example stands close to the locality where the bones are found.

It is true that at Motanau these gravels are isolated from the fringe of gravels skirting the coast line near the mouth of the Waipara, and also from an extensive development of gravels on both banks of the Hurunui, and near Gore Bay, Cheviot Hills. At. Gore Bay these gravels are in their lower beds alternations of silt and angular gravels, in which large angular blocks are of frequent occurrence. The upper beds are well rounded gravels, clay, and loam, as at Motanau, but here the total thickness is much greater, ranging from 300 to 500 feet.

station in Christchurch. During my first visit to the Hanmer Plains I was informed by one of the residents that the temperature of these springs altered considerably according to the seasons and the state of the weather, a fact confirmed by a communication of Dr. Hector made to the Superintendent of Nelson in October, 1870, and printed in the same volume of the “Transactions,”^* in which he gives the main results of his examinations of the same springs on 8th May, 1887. In comparing these observations it appears that the temperatures of the different springs recorded by Dr. Hector are much lower than those obtained by me, and although I am not able to recognize with certainty the different springs as indicated by him, there is evidently a great difference, his highest reading reaching only 90.5°. However, as his visit took place in the autumn, the temperature of the air being only 52°, it is possible that at least to some small extent this may account for his low readings. In order to obtain reliable results, my observations were always taken at the same spot, for maximum temperature of each spring the thermometer being lowered to the bottom, whence the bubbles of sulphurous steam rose up most conspicuously, and where, after several tests, I had found the water possessing the highest temperature. The surface temperature on the other hand was always taken in a similar manner, the instrument being immersed for five minutes at the same spot. In such a manner the readings were uniform throughout.

In case of a great difference of the readings with those previously noted, I always took a second observation in order to obviate any possible error. The appended list of thermometric readings of the thermal springs shows convincingly that even in not more than 24 hours the difference reached in some instances is as much as 13 degrees Fahr. The temperature of the springs was always highest during easterly weather. On the 2nd of January the centre of the principal pool used for bathing purposes reached 120 degrees; on the 5th of January, also, whilst a stronger easterly wind was blowing than on the 2nd of January, 116 degrees were recorded. The lowest reading, 93 degrees, was obtained on January 7th, when a strong north-wester was blowing.

These facts are in accordance with the experience of tlie inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who had previously informed me of this curious phenomenon.

It would be premature to attempt its explanation for the present, but the recorded facts point towards the necessity (if these springs are to be used for medicinal purposes for which, from the cures effected, they are qualified in a high degree), that at least the principal springs have to be

properly enclosed in tubes to a considerable depth. In such a manner the temperature will remain more uniform, the surface water, and the cold springs, which are now allowed to mix freely with those of a thermal character, becoming separated from them, and thus the curative properties will not only be secured in all seasons, but will actually be augmented.

This I presume can only be done, either by the Government of the Colony taking the matter in hand and spending a large amount of money on these springs for the benefit of suffering humanity, in the same manner as this is done by the Governments on the Continent of Europe with their thermal or mineral springs, or to give such facilities to a large company that it will be incumbent upon the promoters to devote a considerable amount of money to that purpose.

Besides the tubings and enclosing of the principal springs, proper houses for bathing, and accommodation for the visitors have to be built, and some amount of money ought to be spent towards embellishing that now rather dreary and bleak spot. Being surrounded by picturesque mountains, a delightful villegiatura would thus be created, equally welcome to the patient and to the resident of the town who seeks change of air and scene.

I have examined carefully the flora in the close vicinity of the springs, but have not found a single plant that has not been previously described, or does not occur in other localities in the Hanmer Plains where the ground is moist.

The most important inhabitant of the pools is a small water-beetle. It has several times given a small bite to my companion and myself when bathing. This was sufficiently acute to be as painful as the prick of a pin. Two were caught in the act and proved to be specimens of Colymbetes rufimanus, in no way different from those occurring in our small cold watercourses.

In my first paper I calculated the altitude of the principal spring, from a single observation, to be 1,162 feet, whilst Dr. Hector's calculation, also from a single observation, places it at 1,360 feet.

Mr. W. Kitson informs me that there is a trig. station (F.) 18 chains north of the pools, which is 1,219 feet above the sea-level. He estimates this point at 20 feet higher than the springs, so that their real altitude would be about 1,200 feet.

and it is on this system that the minerals in the Colonial Museum have been arranged. This is as follows:—

Metallic Minerals.—Class I.

Brittle and fusible with difficulty.

Metallic Minerals.—Class II.

Brittle, easily fusible an I volatile.

Metallic Minerals.—Class III.

Malleable, not reducible by heat alone.

Metallic Minerals.—Class IV.

Noble metals, reducible by heat alone.

Non-metallic Minerals.—Class I.

Water.

Non-metallic Minerals.—Class II.

Carbon and Boron.

N^on-metallic M^inerals.—Class III.

Sulphur and Selenium.

N^on-Metallic Minerals.—Class IV.

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Haloids and Salts Salts of Ammonia, Potash, Soda, Baryta, Strontia, Lime, Magnesia, Aluina, Yttria, and Ceria.

Non-metallic Minerals.—Class V.

Earths.—Silica, Alumina, Magnesia, and their hydrates.

Non-metallic Minerals.—Class VI.

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Silicates and Aluminates. Silicates of Magnesia and Lime, hydrous and anhydrous. Silicates of Alumina, hydrous and anhydrous. Aluminates of Magnesia and Glucina. Silicates of Glucina, Zirconia, Thoria, and Yttria.

The ore is found:—

This ore occurs as a 10-foot band in the Dun Mountain Company's lease, and in the Roding River Company's ground a similar band is over 15 feet in width, and has been opened on vertically for 300 or 400 feet. The

Psilomelane, R˙ M̈n² + H˙.—H. 5–6, massive and botryoidal; colour, ironblack passing to dark steel grey; streak brownish-black; shining, opaque.

This mineral is mentioned in the Jurors' Rep. N.Z. Ex., 1865, p. 258, as amongst Dr. Haast's collections. It was found in veins in the Upper Waimakariri.

It is also found at the Bay of Islands, where it occurs massive and forms the most valuable ore; at Kawau it is found both as a massive ore and also as botryoidal incrustations; and at Waiheke, Waipu, and Whangarei it also occurs, as well as at Ohariu, Wellington, associated with Manganite. It also occurs in large quantities in the island of Pakihi, Auckland, where it is found in numerous small veins, about 1 inch thick, running generally parallel to the cleavage of the slates, but sometimes at right-angles to it (Hutton, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. i., p. 168).

It is a valuable ore of manganese, consisting, as it does, of a mixture of MnO and MnO₂, but varies greatly in its composition, containing many impurities.

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Wad.—Composition various. M˙n. (C˙a. B˙a. K˙.) ⊸n.² + 3H˙.

This is a soft, earthy form of manganese, which varies greatly in its composition and general character, but includes all the softer hydrated manganese ores. It was first mentioner, in 1870, by Captain Hutton, as occurring in considerable quantities, associated with Calcite, in the Black Reef, at Tararu Creek, Thames (Geol. Rep. 1870–71, p. 5), and has also been found at Waiheke, Bay of Islands, Auckland, Napier, Whangarei, and Flaxbourne, and indeed occurs generally wherever other ores of manganese are found. It frequently forms an important ore of that metal, having a similar composition to Psilomelane, but containing a greater quantity of water, and varying more than that ore in the quantity of manganese which it contains.

Analyses of these ores show that they contain from 27.14 to 87.47 per cent. of oxide of manganese; from 12.05 to 28.1 per cent. of water, and from .42 to 42.83 per cent. of silica.

The foregoing are the only ores of manganese which can be looked upon as of economic value, since their usefulness depends upon the amount of oxygen which they contain combined with the metal; and the black oxide,

MnO₂, which occurs pure in Pyrolusite, is the most valuable, on account of its parting readily with its oxygen to substances capable of combining with it, and on this property depends the value of the ore in the generation of chlorine for bleaching purposes, the decolourization of glass where sub-oxides of this metal form the colouring matter, and also in its recent application to the oxidation of phosphorus, etc., in the process of iron manufacture.

Manganese, however, also occurs in other forms, which require mention as minerals.

Diallogite, M˙nC˙.—The occurrence of this mineral is mentioned by Mr. Skey (Geol. Rep. 1870–71, p. 85) associated with Calamine from a claim high up the Tararu Creek, Thames, and presented by the manager of Russell's battery.

He says: “The Diallogite of this specimen contains a portion of carbonate of lime, but the amount has not yet been ascertained. It is coloured with oxide of iron, and crystallized in large rhombohedrons. The carbonate of lime forms lustrous transparent crystals attached to the former, but always external. These are always well shaped, but comparatively small. They are interspersed somewhat rarely with small rock crystals.” I regret that I have been unable to find this specimen.

A massive, flesh-coloured, specimen of this mineral was also collected by Dr. Hector, November, 1881, in Makara Valley, where it occurs on Mr. Thos. Robinson's property.

Rhodonite or Manganese Spar, M˙n S̈i.—The occurrence of this mineral at Kawarau and Clutha is mentioned (Jurors' Rep. N.Z. Ex., 1865, p. 265), and at the Pioneer claim, Dunstan (Jurors' Rep., p. 413), and it has also been found in Canterbury and Waiheke.

Haurite, Mn″.—In a paper read before this Society during the last session, I mentioned the occurrence of this mineral, as determined by Mr. Skey in rocks from the Wakatipu district, collected by Mr. McKay, and I have now to mention its occurrence in certain specimens forwarded by Mr. H. P. Washbourn from Collingwood, where it occurs in crystals composed of the cube and rhombic dodecahedron.

Dana only mentions this mineral as occurring at Kalinka in Hungary, in clay with gypsum and sulphur, in a region something like a solfatara, but the Mangan-blende or Alabandine which is a subsulphide of manganese, he states, occurs in veins in the gold mines of Nagyag in Transylvania, associated with Tellurium, carbonate of manganese and quartz. It is interesting, therefore, to note the occurrence of Hauerite in crystalline schistose rocks, and I was led by this to examine ores from other countries to see whether it ever did occur under similar conditions. The result of this

Massive varieties.—The massive varieties are more widely distributed and assume a greater economic importance since they are found as the principal constituents of lodes in various parts of the colony. Perhaps the most important of these is the ore from Stoney Creek, Waipori. It consists of a massive crystalline variety of Stibnite occurring in a lode 2½ feet thick, which has been traced for a distance of 200 feet, and is reported to be met with as outcrops for a much greater distance. The pure ore is mixed with about 30 per cent. of gangue in the lode (Rowe, Geol. Rep. 1879–80, p. 155).

A massive sub-crystalline variety from Endeavour Inlet, Queen Charlotte Sound, consists of a mixture of nearly pure Stibnite with quartz; and a series of analyses have given 69.4 per cent.; 36.36 per cent; 58.25 per cent.; 51.12 per cent; 44.28 per cent.; 19.01 per cent.; and 17.20 per cent. of Antimony, and they contain from 3 to 8 dwts. of gold per ton.

This ore was found scattered as large blocks through a surface deposit, and a reef was also found which carried Stibnite on its back, but passed afterwards into a poor auriferous quartz, and it is probable that the real source of the ore has not yet been found.

A very interesting occurrence of auriferous Stibnite has been discovered at Langdon's, near Greymouth. The first specimen of this ore was forwarded from Hokitika by Mr. McRae, and yielded 84 ozs. 9 dwts. 19 grs. of gold and 36 ozs. 4 dwts. 5 grs. of silver per ton. The large quantity of gold found in this specimen gave an air of probability to the supposition that telluride of gold was present; but when an examination for Tellurium was made none was found, and a large proportion of free gold was shown to exist.

Dr. Hector subsequently examined this reef, and in the Geological Reports, 1878–79, p. 19, he says:—“Following up the same creek, at an altitude of 400 feet above Langdon's reef, the lode from which the auriferous Stibnite is derived has been discovered, having a thickness of 9 feet, and dipping at 60° to the south-west. It is cased in a hard, blue, cherty slate, and has a banded structure, consisting of five distinct bands—

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The following returns were obtained by assay of these samples:—

• No. 1.—Quartz and Stibnite.

• a contains 2 ozs. 10 dwts. 7 grs. gold per ton.

• b " 2 " 0 " 6 " " "

occurs in moderate sized dark-coloured crystals, having a pyramidal (tetra-hedral) form, and is associated with iron pyrites, acicular crystals of quartz, Galena, and traces of copper. Its matrix is a pure amorphous quartz. Specimens of blende were subsequently forwarded by the same contributor from Mine Bay, Great Barrier Island.

In the same year Mr. Davis (Geol. Reports, 1870–71, p. 61), mentions its occurrence at the Silver Crown Claim, Thames; at page 85, Mr. Skey mentions its occurrence at the Thames, and at page 149, Captain Hutton also notes its presenee in the New Golden Crown Claim, in the same district. He also (at page 154) mentions the occurrence of this mineral in the Perseverance mine, Collingwood.

Besides these localities Zinc Blende has since been found in the reefs at Mount Arthur, whence the gold is extracted.

All the specimens of Zinc Blende which have come under my notice are of a massive character but vary somewhat in appearance. The specimens from the Thames goldfield, which are well represented by those obtained from the Little Agnes mine, Tararu Creek, are black resinous samples of the mineral, known as “Black Jack.” That from Collingwood varies from Black Jack to a yellow honey-coloured Blende, containing from 59% to 65% zinc, and Captain Hutton thus describes its mode of occurrence:—“At about five feet above the lode, in the felspathic slate, is a band some five or six feet thick, of Zinc Blende and Galena. In the lower part of this band, the Blende is bluish-black, with a metallic lustre, while towards the upper part it is associated with Galena, which is sometimes crystallized, and here it is of a pale yellow colour, and a resinous lustre.” (Geol. Rep., 1870–71, p. 150.)

In examining this locality last year, I was led to the conclusion that at one part of the mine at least this Zinc Blende and Galena formed a part of the lode since it occurred associated with quartz and Mispickel, had the grey felspathic slates for its hanging wall and black slates at the foot, which corresponds to the general position of the main Perseverance reef. Subsequently, however, I am informed a small shaft was sunk and the main reef discovered 6 feet below this Zinc Blende and Galena vein, as described by Captain Hutton, so that possibly these deposits are offshoots from the main reef. The other localities where Zinc Blende has been found do not merit special description, as in no other case has it been discovered in sufficient quantities to prove of commercial value.

Calamine, żn C̈.—Mr. Skey (Geol. Rep. 1870–71, p. 85) describes this mineral from Tararu Creek, Thames, as “lustrous transparent crystals attached to Diallogite, but always external; these are well shaped but comparatively small; they are interspersed somewhat rarely with small rock

Hematite—Specular Iron, Fe.—This mineral, which is the peroxide of iron, occurs associated with the same rocks (chlorite schists) as deposits of anhydrous hematite, which are of considerable value. This ore occurs as lenticular masses, which form a central band, extending from the upper part of Moke Creek, near the Wakatipu Lake, through Benmore and thence in the direction of Mount Gilbert. They are not, however, confined to this line, but occur throughout this schistose formation in the Wakitipu district, and appear to have their greatest development between Skippers and Moonlight Creeks. A six feet vein in mica schist occurs at Maori Point on the Shotover.

This mineral also occurs as small single crystals (generally rhombohedral) dispersed through a hard quartzose schist in the same district.

It is from the above deposits that the large boulders and minute grains of iron-black hematite are derived which are so generally associated with the auriferous deposits of our southern goldfields, and which are called by the diggers “Black Maori,” by whom they are looked upon as an indication of gold, in consequence of their high specific gravity.

Analyses of several specimens of anhydrous hematite from Dunstan, Otago; Maramarua, Auckland; Otamataura Creek, Collingwood; and Wangaroa, Auckland, have been made at the Colonial Laboratory, and show that they contain from 61 per cent. to 68 per cent. of iron. The detailed results will be found in the Colonial Museum and Laboratory reports, or in the Manual of the Mineral Resources of New Zealand, in course of publication.

Limonite—Hydrous Hematite, 2 Fe + 3 H.—This mineral occurs throughout New Zealand, not, however, in most cases in sufficient quantities to be of any value. At two localities, both near Collingwood, large and valuable deposits are found under very different conditions. The best known of these deposits is that situated on the south-east side of the Parapara River, and about a mile from its mouth. The ore occurs in massive, earthy, botryoidal, mammillary, and concretionary forms. Its colour is various shades of brown, commonly dark and none bright; when earthy it is a brownish-yellow or ochre-yellow. When concretionary in character the ore forms hollow spherical masses commonly known as pot or bombshell ore. It occurs as a vein associated with crystalline metamorphic limestones which occupy a considerable area of country, and in the vicinity of the mouth of the Parapara River the degradation of the rocks has covered a large area with this hematite in boulders, some of enormous size. It also forms the matrix of a quartz conglomerate there. On breaking some of the masses of ore a kernel of undecomposed pyrites is frequently found, and crystals of iron pyrites of large size are very common in some places. From this, and

the fact that its mode of occurrence and mineral character favour the conclusion, I am inclined to think that this deposit of brown hematite is nothing more than the gossan of some very large pyritous lode. It has been estimated that 52,893,058 tons of the ore are exposed at the surface.

The other important deposit of brown hematite was discovered by Mr. McKay in 1878, at Mount Peel in the Nelson district, and contains 54 per cent. of metallic iron. The ore, which is a dark-brown compact one, is associated with fine-grained breccias, dark slates weathering white, and heavy beds of compact blue crystalline limestone which overlie the great series of breccia beds and conglomerates which form the western part of the Mount Arthur range. Where the specimens were obtained the bed was about 50 feet thick, and isolated masses 10 feet to 15 feet across were also observed; while to the north of the Takaka a much greater development takes place, and diggers report the ore in this locality to be about a mile in width.

Besides these important deposits many specimens have been received at the Museum for identification or analysis, from the following localities:—Pitt's Island; Thames; West Coast; Makara, Wellington; Kawau; the Bluff; Raglan; Riwaka, Nelson; Big Muddy Creek, Manukau; Whare-kawau; Wangaroa North; Manawatu Gorge; Paringa River; and Tawa Flat; and these have yielded from 29 per cent. to 60 per cent. metallic iron. The details of these analyses are included in the Colonial Laboratoy Reports and the Manual of the Mineral Resources before-mentioned.

Chloropal, Fe S¨i².—Professor Liversidge (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. x., p. 497) mentions the occurrence of this mineral in New Zealand, presented to the Otago Museum by Captain Fraser. The following is his description of the specimen:—“Of a yellowish-green colour; somewhat foliated cone-in-cone structure; sectile, soft; easily polished, even by rubbing with the thumb; adheres slightly to the tongue: when immersed in water gives off air-bubbles, and becomes translucent. Before the blowpipe does not decrepitate; blackens immediately, and fuses with difficulty on the edges, with slight intumescence, to a black glassy slag.”

Siliceous Hematites.—Besides the foregoing ones, there are a few instances of hematites occurring in which the percentage of silica is so high as to make it advisable to class them under a different head. These ores are generally of a rusty-brown colour, of varying degrees of hardness, and seldom contain more than 20 per cent. metallic iron, and in some cases a good deal less.

Specimens have been received from the Dun Mountain, Nelson; Paringa River, Westland; and the neighbourhood of Wellington.

Bog Iron Ore is another form of hydrous hematite which is found at several localities in New Zealand. It is, generally speaking, of a porous character, and varies considerably in its composition. It has never yet been found in any considerable mass, and is seldom of much value on account of the phosphorus which most samples contain.

Analyses have been made of samples from Spring Swamp, Whangarei; Wainui-o-mata, Wellington; Carterton; Rangitikei; Stoke, Nelson; and Oroua Downs; in which the percentage of metallic iron varies from 19 to 51.

Spathic Iron Ores, Fe C.—The massive forms of these ores, which are essentially carbonate of iron, are very widely distributed in New Zealand, being, as a rule, associated with the cretaceo-tertiary and coal formations. Bands of clay ironstone, about 2 feet thick, occur in the Waipara District, and another band of sandy clay iron ore, 10 feet thick, is mentioned by Dr. Haast in the same locality (Geol. Rep., 1870–71, p. 11). Ironstone boulders are found in the Kakanui River which have been derived from the concretionary greensands. Valuable deposits of clay-band ironstone occur near Mount Somers and in the Malvern Hills, associated with coal, and further deposits are also found near the Abbey Rocks, Westland. Associated with the coal measures on the Twelve-mile Beach north of the Grey River, and thence inland, valuable deposits of spathic iron ore occur as lenticular masses and concretions in the shales. They are also notably developed in the Nine-mile Creek in the same district. They are again found at Jenkins Hill, Nelson, and at the Collingwood Coal-mine, where a bed of black-band ironstone also occurs, and another instance of its occurrence is at the Baton River, Nelson, in the cretaceo-tertiary formation.

In the North Island, beds of spathic iron ore have been found in the same formation, at the Miranda Colliery, inland of Taranaki, at the Manawatu Gorge, at Wangaroa and Raglan. In most of these localities the ironstones are fossiliferous, and contain numerous and well-preserved impressions of dicotyledonous leaves.

Further deposits of spathic iron ore also occur in the Mataura series, having been discovered by Mr. McKay, in the Cairn Ranges, Malvern Hills. They occur as strings and lenticular patches, with beautifully-preserved fossil ferns, and are of considerable importance.

Analyses of ores of this description have shown that they contain from 8.53 per cent. to 46.06 per cent. metallic iron, and the details of these will be found in the works above cited. They are all brown, sandy-looking ores, and are specially valuable on account of the ease with which they are reduced.

Siderite, Fe C¨.—The occurrence of this mineral in cavities of the contorted schist of Otago is mentioned by Dr. Hector (Jurors' Rep. N.Z. Ex.,

1865, pp. 264–436), but we have no specimen in the Museum. Professor Liversidge again mentions the occurrence of this mineral at Dunedin (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. x., p. 494), as well as a magnesian ironstone from the Clutha.

Sphærosiderite occurs as an accessory mineral in many of our volcanic and dyke rocks. Thus Dr. Hector mentions it as occurring in basalt (Jurors' Rep. N.Z. Ex., pp. 264 and 436), and Dr. Haast mentions its occurrence in dyke rocks, and in the volcanic rocks of Banks Peninsula and the melaphyres of Mount Somers (Jurors' Rep., p. 258; Geol. Rep., 1873–74, p. 4, and Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xi., p. 504). It is generally found as small rhombohedral crystals, lining cavities in these rocks.

Dendritic Iron markings are of very frequent occurrence in all the harder and jointed rocks, some of them being of exceeding beauty. They are frequently mistaken for fossil ferns, which they very much resemble at times.

Ilmenite (Titanate of Iron).—This species includes several varieties due to the isomorphous characters of titanic and ferric oxides, so that the percentage of titanic acid present varies very considerably in different specimens. It is of very common occurrence as an accessory mineral in the volcanic rocks, where it occurs as small rhombohedral crystals, affording generally triangular or pentagonal sections when cut, and it enters largely into the composition of many of the ironsands of New Zealand, which surround so large a proportion of our coast. These ironsands are composed of a proportion of titanic iron, ranging from 2.4 per cent. to 74.2 per cent. of the whole, mixed with Magnetite and Hematite in varying proportions.

It is very difficult to group these in any definite order by the amount of titanic acid present, but it is noticeable that amongst those which occur on the southern beaches and also in the river beds the percentage is frequently high, ranging from 40 to 74 per cent. of titanic iron, and these have been principally derived from the basaltic rocks of the district.

On the other hand, the ironsands of the west coast of the South Island are practically free from TiO₂ in many cases, while the well known Taranaki ironsand only contains from 6 to 8 per cent. of titanic iron. There are, however, many ironsand deposits in Otago and Southland which contain from 2 to 8 per cent. titanic iron only, so that it is impossible to assign special areas over which any percentage will hold. Such, however, is not the case if we seek the rocks from which these ironsands have been derived, for we there find that the basaltic rocks have as a rule yielded an ironsand in which the percentage of titanic iron is over 50; that the granitic rocks seldom yield a sand in which the percentage of titanic iron is over 8; and

that the trachytio rocks, like those of Taranaki, and which may be looked upon as mineralogically allied to the granites and syenites on other grounds, also yield an ironsand having a small percentage of titanic iron.

Where ironsands occur which are intermediate between the two extremes it is due either to a mixture of those derived from two distinct sources, or else the percentage of titanic iron has been increased by the presence of diabase or diorite dykes.

Menaccanite.—Mr. Skey mentions the occurrence of this mineral (titaniferous iron ore) from Brancepeth, Wairarapa (8th Lab. Rep. p. 15). It occurs with felspar, by which it appears to have been cemented together.

Iron Ochre occurs as a deposit from chalybeate springs and ferruginous waters in many mines both of coal, gold, and copper.

Iron Pyrites, Fe″.—This mineral is exceedingly widely distributed in New Zealand, indeed may be considered as general in its distribution. At Parapara, Collingwood, very perfect octahedral crystals are of common occurrence over part of the limonite deposit previously mentioned, and cubical crystals are of frequent occurrence in the chlorite schists and lepidomelane schists of the metamorphic region of the West Coast and Wakatipu Lake district.

It is of frequent occurrence as isolated crystals dispersed through the auriferous rocks of the Thames (tufanites), and also in many of the slates, and again forms an important element in the composition of many of the auriferous quartz reefs both north and south.

It also occurs as important lodes in the Collingwood district, where several of these are known to occur, and all that have been tested are more or less auriferous in character. These, pyrites lodes are found—

1st. In felspathic slates which are associated with the auriferous reefs, the largest yet known being about 4 feet wide.

2nd. In the crystalline limestone; a reef in the Parapara River, above McGregor's Creek, being at least 8 feet wide, and composed of a fine-grained compact pyrites. As I have previously pointed out it is also probable that the limonite deposits of the Parapara are also the back of a large pyritous lode.

At Mount Rangitoto, in Westland, a pyrites lode, with which is associated about 20 per cent. galena, occurs, and this is frequently highly auriferous, containing from 5 to 13 ozs. of gold per ton. It is associated with schists and granites. The late Mr. E. H. Davis has described (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iii., p. 287) a new form of iron pyrites, probably a pseudo-morph, from the Chatham Islands. He says: “The system is oblique, nearly isomorphous with felspar, but having the clino-diagonal longer; the faces, which are smooth and brilliant, are ∞ P; OP; P; nP∞ hemidome, and nP∞ clinodome.”

Native Copper, Cu, occurs:—1st. In plates associated with the copper deposits of the serpentine belt in Nelson. Specimens have been obtained at Aniseed Valley; Dun Mountain; and D'Urville Island. It has also been found at Moke Creek, Lake Wakatipu; at the Great Barrier Island; and at the Perseverance Mine, Collingwood. The presence of copper in the Dun Mountain has been known since 1853:—2nd. As grains disseminated through a granular serpentine at Aniseed Valley, Nelson, where the native copper forms an average of 5 per cent. of the rock mass, but the extension of the deposit has not been proved:—3rd. As fine grains in basaltic dykes which cut through trachydolerite breccias near the Manukau North Head, at which place it is of no economic value on account of the small percentage present, but is of great interest from its unusual mode of occurrence.

Cuprite, Cu.—This mineral, which, when pure, contains 88.9 per cent. of copper, is only known to occur in the serpentine belt of Nelson, where it is found in various degrees of purity, containing from 10 to 88.9 per cent. of copper. As pointed out by Dr. Hochstetter (New Zealand, p. 475), the richer deposits of ore form lenticular-shaped masses, which, when followed, may increase to a certain distance, but then disappear again in a thin wedge. The most notable discovery of this mineral which has yet been made is that known as the Champion Lode, in Aniseed Valley, which was found by Mr. Stratford, a few months ago. This deposit is reported to be 5 feet in width, and is exposed on the surface for some distance. It has not, however, yet been worked. Specimens of this ore, which consist of Cuprite and native copper, have yielded as high a return as 90 per cent. metallic copper. Some rich patches of the ore have also been found at the Aniseed Valley Mine, Dun Mountain, and D'Urville Island, in each case associated with copper glance, but no deposits of any great importance have yet been met with and the ore is in all cases more or less ferruginous. No crystals of this mineral have yet been obtained, but it always occurs in a massive form. Cuprite has also been discovered at Bligh's Sound, Otago (Hector, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. ii., p. 378), and at Tokomairiro (Hector, Jurors' Rep. N.Z. Ex., p. 436), and is also mentioned by Captain Hutton as occurring in small quantities in a lode at the Thames, a little north of Wainui (Geol. Rep., 1867, p. 9).

Copper Glance, Cu′.—When pure, this mineral contains 79.8 per cent. of copper, and it has been found associated with Cuprite at most places where that mineral occurs in various parts of the Nelson serpentine belt. It is always in a massive form, and has not yet been shown to occur in deposits of sufficient extent to prove remunerative. The same remarks with regard to its occurrence apply as in the case of Cuprite.

Bornite, Cu¹³ Fe″′.—Dr. Hector mentions the occurrence of this mineral at Kawau (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol., ii., p. 375), and Professor Liversidge also mentions a specimen from Dunstan, Otago (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. x., p. 502).

Chalcopyrite (copper pyrites), Cu′ + Fe″′.—This ore, which contains theoretically 34.5 per cent of copper, but which in nature is seldom found to have more than 15 to 20 per cent. present, and frequently less, is the most permanent form of copper ore and the one from which the greater quantity of that metal is extracted.

This mineral was first discovered at the Island of Kawau in 1842, and was worked for several years, yielding on an average 12 per cent. of copper (Hector, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. ii., p. 375). When the mine was abandoned the lode was reported to be 15 feet thick and to consist of a compact yellow pyrites, averaging 16 per cent. copper, lying against a band of iron pyrites. An account of the character of the lode has been published by Dr. Hector (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. ii., p. 375). Copper pyrites has again been worked at Mine Bay, Great Barrier Island, where it occurs associated with peacock copper, blue and green carbonate, and black oxide, but is now abandoned. It occurs in a breccia lode, and has been reported on by Captain Hutton (Geol. Rep., 1868–69, p. 4).

Another instance of its occurrence is at Moke Creek, Lake Wakatipu, where it is found in a lode 4 feet wide (Hector, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. ii., p. 378), in which a solid vein of Chalcopyrite from 5 to 8 inches wide occurs, the rest of the lode containing only a little copper scattered through the gangue, and it is bounded by cupriferous schists. It again occurs in a lode near Waipori, in Reedy Creek, a branch of the Waitahuna, from which locality some very fine specimens have been obtained, yielding as much as 14 per cent. of copper.

Mr. Macfarlane has forwarded specimens of Chalcopyrite from a block of land on the Paringa River, Westland, which he reports that he obtained from a lode 3 feet wide. Half of this lode is made up of the solid ore, yielding 18.55 per cent. of copper, the remainder consisting of quartz with thin bands of ore of the same kind. Copper Pyrites has also been found at the Pioneer Claim, Collingwood. Besides these localities at which lodes are known to occur, Copper Pyrites has been found at various places, such as the Thames, associated with gold; as grains imbedded in quartzose schists of the Moorhouse Range, Canterbury; in the river beds south of Mount Cook on the West Coast; in a lode at Dusky Sound, which however did not prove of great value when opened up; at Lake Ohou; and at the Perseverance Mine, Collingwood, in small quantities.

several classes, and in an alluvial form, it being from the alluvial workings that by far the greater quantity of gold has been obtained. The goldfields have been divided on the Geological Map into Northern, Central, Western, and Southern, and the gold from the different localities varies considerably in purity. That from Otago or the Southern fields and from Westland is pure or nearly so, being alloyed with less than 6 per cent. Ag., and a little copper. In Nelson it is alloyed with 10 to 14 per cent. of silver, while at the Thames or Northern goldfield it is generally alloyed with over 30 per cent. of silver, thus corresponding in composition to the Electrum^* of Klaproth, which contains gold 64, and silver 36 per cent. There is also a marked difference in the associated minerals north and south, which, of course, is dependent upon the rocks from which the gold is derived. Thus in the Southern goldfield it is associated with Platinum, Zircons, and Garnets, as well as Black Hematite and Scheelite; in Nelson it occurs with the rare minerals Osmiridium and Platiniridium, and in the Northern goldfields Native Arsenic, Copper Pyrites, Galena, Zinc Blende, and Stibnite occur in the reefs, these being also more or less represented at Collingwood and at parts of the West Coast. The different characters of the reefs and mode of deposition are, however, the most marked and interesting in different localities.

In the Southern goldfield at Macetown and Cromwell these reefs are of a truly brecciated character (Hector, Geol. Rep. 1878–9, p. 24), being composed of angular fragments of slate and schist cemented by quartz, with which gold has been infiltrated in a very pure form. The gold in these reefs must have been introduced by mechanical means, but some has probably also been deposited from solution; but these reefs which occur in metamorphic schists have probably been formed subsequently to those in the foliated schistose rocks and slates, which belong to the next group, and from which they have derived their gold to a large extent. The reefs of the Reefton district, on the other hand, are true fissure reefs, and owe their origin to fractures produced by contortion, those which occupy the synclines widening as they descend, while those on the anticlines die out in depth or come to be nothing more than strings. Outliers of the same formation of reef occur at Cardrona. These fissures having been formed by the same action which induces cleavage elsewhere, during the plication of the strata on a large scale, have given rise to subterranean channels, in which the quartz and gold have been deposited from solution. The reefs thus formed consist of solid, compact quartz, and correspond more to the Australian reefs than any others. It is hard to assign any reason for the precipitation of gold in cases of this sort, and a field of research yet remains open for anyone who feels disposed to take it up.

The next class of reefs are those which occur in the vicinity of Wellington. The rocks here consist of ridges of slate and sandstone, probably of lower carboniferous age, and these have been traversed by a series of dislocations which cross the lines of stratification obliquely. The consequent displacement appears to have indurated the sandstones and altered the shales, when in contact with them, into friable cherty slates of a deepblue colour, traversed by thread-like veins of quartz (Hector, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. ii., p. 368). These movements, when deep-seated, would doubtless be attended with the evolution of steam under great pressure, which would, by traversing the cracks, carry up with it in solution whatever minerals were present, and subsequently deposit them, not as they are now found, but as quartz with pyrites, which would be more or less auriferous according to circumstances. When by subsequent denudation these deepseated veins were brought under the action of the atmosphere, a decomposition of the pyrites would ensue and free gold be left in the veins in the manner in which it now occurs. In addition to the gold derived from the auriferous pyrites, some must have been deposited at once in its native condition or have been subjected to re-solution and precipitation, as it is commonly found in a dendritic form.

The last class of gold-bearing reefs are those of the Thames and Coromandel districts, from which the greatest quantity of reef gold has hitherto been obtained. These are of extreme interest as regards their mode of occurrence. The rocks which form the matrix of these reefs are of volcanic origin, and consist of various classes of a felsitic rock, more or less decomposed, through which pyrites is very freely scattered. It appears to be more or less allied to the “propylite” of v. Richtofen, and has been called “tufanite” by Dr. Hector. These rocks rest unconformably upon the slates which form the basement rock of the Cape Colville Peninsula, and are in their turn overlaid unconformably by dolerite floes, and coarse volcanic breccias and tufas, with which are associated irregular seams and patches of coal. The whole series appears to have been tilted along a north east line, the force which thus tilted the beds having produced a series of fractures, which, by the subsequent sinking of the hanging wall, have been opened and formed subterranean water-channels, thus affording an underground drainage to the country. Water percolating through these drains has deposited quartz and, under favourable circumstances, gold from solution, and this gold is found, sometimes disseminated through the compact portions of the stone as minute specs, and at other times entangled in a crystalline or dendritic form where the quartz is open in texture. In the latter cases, more especially in vughs in the reefs, the gold is frequently associated with Native Arsenic and Sulphides of Copper, Lead, Zinc, and Antimony.

The presence of gold in these reefs appears to depend upon a variety of circumstances which are not yet thoroughly understood; I may, however, mention a few essentials which have been observed. The first of these is that the reefs should be passing through moderately hard compact country, and where this is traversed by thin black pyritous veins which junction with the reef, the character of the country may be looked upon as more favourable. Where any reefs are found passing through this class of country they are generally more or less auriferous, and this is specially noticeable in the large reefs of the district. There are, however, in addition to the large reefs, innumerable small leaders, from 1/16 inch thick up to a few inches, which, while following approximately the same strike as the other reefs, are as a general rule somewhat steeper; and where these junction with the main reefs in favourable country, very rich deposits of gold are frequently met with. Besides these hanging-wall leaders there are also many droppers from the foot-walls of the reefs in which also rich gold is often found, and they give one the impression of being leaks, if I may use the term, from the main reef, by which some of the gold has escaped.

The character of these deposits points most conclusively to the fact that the greater quantity of the gold in the reefs was deposited from solution, and the fact of the junctions of different leaders making the gold, leads one to believe that it was only where two streams, carrying the necessary ingredients in solution, met and mingled that any precipitation of gold ensued and a deposit of the precious metal was formed.

There are many other points bearing upon the behaviour of the reefs which are of great interest, but which it is not my province to discuss here.

That all the gold in these reefs is not derived from the same source, is I think, however, apparent, for that which is crystallized or occurs in dendritic forms, would owe its origin to super-heated steam, in the same manner as the last described set of rocks, and the description of gold with native arsenic from the Kapanga Mine, Coromandel, which will be found under the head of arsenic, offers a very striking illustration of this.

With regard to alluvial gold but little need be said. The principal alluvial fields are those of Otago and the West Coast, with some smaller but still important ones in the Nelson district, and the alluvial gold partakes of the same characters as that obtained from the reefs. Large nuggets are rare, indeed the largest which has been obtained is one from Rocky River, Collingwood, weighing 10 ozs., and another from the same locality weighed 8 ozs. These are mentioned by Dr. v. Hochstetter, (New Zealand, p. 100.)

Gold is also obtained from what are known as the Cement workings, at Tuapeka, and elsewhere. These cements consist of heavy gravels which have been consolidated, and are the remains of an old glacier or glacial river,

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The completeness of the change may vary from the incipient form shown by indurated clay-slate rocks in cleavage, which always occur in a direction other than the plane of bedding. Some slaty rocks are apparently volcanic ash deposits. This structure of cleavage is more mechanical than chemical, and caused by great lateral pressure by which the component particles were flattened, producing lines of weakness at right-angles to direction of pressure. This structure has been artificially produced in some soft substances, by Dr. Sorby and Prof. Tyndal, and also by Messrs. Fox and Hunt, by passing galvanic currents through masses of moistened pottery clay (Page's Geology, p. 154). The contorted condition of fossils that occur in the slates show also the disturbance of the particles forming the slate.

Limestones pass from an indurated into a compact and microcrystalline texture, becoming granular when highly metamorphosed. The latter generally occurs associated with schist, or in the proximity of eruptive rocks. The whole of these varieties are popularly termed marbles. Crystalline marble has been artificially produced by heating chalk under pressure sufficient to prevent the escape of carbonic acid gas. Many accessory minerals, such as zircon, spinel, corundum, lapis lazuli, are found in crystalline limestones.

Arenaceous rocks, such as sandstones, are composed of rounded particles of quartz; and grits of angular fragments and crystals, together with rounded particles of quartz; these are converted by metamorphosis into quartzites, the component particles being cemented with siliceous material; both kinds often contain felspar, which renders them capable of conversion into felstone rocks, and when mica is present, micaceous kinds are produced.

The alteration passes then into foliation, which is a segregation into crystalline layers of different mineral composition, the planes of separation being either along those of the bedding or cleavage. This structure is

termed schistose. The various mineral layers blend into each other, and are composed chiefly of quartz, felspar, mica, and talc or chlorite, while veins of quartz ramifying through clay, slate, or other non-siliceous rock, render them convertible into argillaceous mica-schist or phyllite, mica-schist, granulite; or less siliceous kinds, forming talc, chlorite, hornblende, or actinolite-schist, or schorl rock.

Schistose structure has been found also to be occasionally produced in lavas, the vesicles in which have been compressed and attenuated in the direction of flow (Rutley, Q.J.G.S., vol. xxxvi., p. 285).

A further alteration of these rocks takes place into gneiss, which has a schistose structure, the quartz, felspar, and mica, and often hornblende, of which it is composed, being arranged in layers, the foliation constituting the chief difference from granite. Gneiss, and schistose rocks, with intercalated beds of crystalline limestone, form the laurentian rocks of Canada. The schist containing beds of graphite, or unoxidized carbon and apatite, (Dawson, Q.J.G.S., vol. xxxii., p. 285), denotes plant, and the limestone, animal life. Graphite occurs also at Pakawau, in Nelson, under similar condition in metamorphosed strata, and its presence denotes that no extreme temperature was attained during metamorphosis of the rock.

Gneiss has been found in many cases to merge into granite, so that the extreme of metamorphism may be regarded as granite, the fundamental rock throughout our earth; and its massive crystalline texture and its chemical combination of elements, namely, quartz, felspar and mica, must now be regarded as the ultimate crystalline condition, under great pressure, of sedimentary strata, either by slow consolidation after having been converted into a molten state, or by gradual chemical and structural change.

The quartz in granite often has cavities and enclosures of other minerals, principally rutile and chlorite; these cavities generally contain pure water, occasionally liquid carbonic acid, or a solution of chloride of sodium; they also contain bubbles, or rather vacuous spaces which show the contraction which the imprisoned fluid has undergone during the cooling of the rock. Dr. Sorby and others have endeavoured to calculate the amount of pressure shown by these contractions in volume. Spaces or beads of glassy or amorphous quartz, also occur, which denote that the quartz had first become viscous, and in consequence solidified without crystallizing. The liquefaction proved by the liquid cavities to have once been the condition of granite, has caused it in places to burst through adjacent rocks in an eruptive manner, when disturbed perhaps by an increased pressure, while other portions of the same mass may gradually blend into schistose sedimentary strata. Professor Judd has proved how granitic rocks in the Island of Mull, Scotland, and at Schemnitz, in Hungary, are directly connected with volcanic rocks, and both form portions of one and the same mass.

“One of the arguments against the igneous origin of granite is that its quartz has a s.g. of 2.6, identical with that of silica, derived from aqueous solution, while the s.g. of fused silica is only 2.2″ (Rutley's “Petrology,” p. 207).

Professor Haughton, in his annual address to the Geological Society of Dublin in 1862, in alluding to a table of the specific gravities of natural and artificially fused rocks, remarks:—“It appears to me that the column of differences greatly strengthens the arguments of those chemists and geologists who believed that water played a much more important part in the formation of granites and trap rocks than it has done in the production of trachytes, basalts, and lavas, and that they owe their relatively high s.g. to its agency.”

The accompanying table from Dr. Page's “Geology” shows admirably the component parts of granite, the felspar occurring in two varieties, “orthoclase” and “oligoclase,” the former being associated with white and black mica (uniaxial and biaxial).

A table of felspars is also shown for the sake of reference. It shows the crystallographic relations with the chemical.

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When granite and other rocks have penetrated superincumbent strata, the contact of the molten mass has usually produced a change in the neighbouring rocks, but of a different character to that widespread uniform character described under metamorphism. The difference has been brought about through its sudden character, and probably by the loss of a large portion of watery vapour, causing a vitrifying effect to be produced. Hornblende-slates are frequently formed along the contact margins of granite and clay-slates. (Q.J.G.S., vol. xxxii., p. 187, J. A. Phillips; Q.J.G.S., vol. xxxiv., p. 438).

Metalliferous veins are usually found to have been formed by the occurrence of intrusive rocks in the vicinity, the latter having been usually decomposed by acids and vapours, the introduced metals, or the metals from them, being deposited in veins.

Mr. J. A. Phillips in Q.J.G.S., vol. xxxv., p. 391, describes the district of Steamboat Springs, Nevada, where “fissures are being lined with siliceous incrustations which are being constantly deposited, while a central longitudinal opening allows the escape of gases, steam and boiling water; the water is slightly alkaline and contains carbonate of sodium, sulphate of sodium, common salt, etc.” These springs have deposited cinnabar (ore of mercury) with the silica (both amorphous and crystalline, the latter containing the usual liquid cavities and ordinary optical and other characters of ordinary quartz). At other springs in the same district silver and gold have been found enclosed in sinter-like deposits. In Australia gold occurs in pyrites contained in diorites and granite, and gold mines are worked in these rocks. Mineral veins often show by their structure that the fissures (Q.J.G.S., vol. xxxii., p. 169) they fill have been widened repeatedly, probably by the force of crystallization, successive infiltration having filled the fissure with siliceous and other substances forming a banded structure. The metals when they occur may either have been deposited from solution or by sublimation. The tin-bearing bands of schorl rock in granite of Cornwall, have been proved to have been formed through the decomposition of the granite along the sides of leaders or veins. Granites vary from coarsely porphyritic granites to the fine grained elvans (quartziferous porphyry) in which mica is present. The porphyritic texture is due to the inequality in the crystallizing power of the various minerals, felspar and mica crystallizing more readily than quartz, the latter always occurring in consequence in more irregular forms than the former.

Hornblende and schorl are sometimes found replacing mica to a great extent, forming syenite and schorlaceous-granite, and when only a small proportion of quartz occurs the rock passes into syenite and schorlrock. Granite frequently passes into felstone, micaceous felstone differing

only from granite in texture. Trachytes are volcanic rocks, possessing precisely the same chemical constitution as felstone, and form their modern representatives; they occur largely in the central portions of this island. Both belong to the acidic group, and form far more extensive deposits than the basic, which are represented by melaphyres and basalts, and to these belong the Auckland Isthmus volcanic rocks, while intermediate forms termed trachydolerites (Scrope) predominate in some areas. This preponderance of siliceous kinds has caused some geologists to consider that they predominated in the older, and the basic in the more modern rocks. The eruptions from the greater number of the active volcanoes of the present day have apparently a basic character, but the recent investigations of the nature of the bed of the ocean show that while Globigerina ooze covers the ridges and plateaux down to 2,000 fathoms, lower deposits are covered with a red clay, formed of decomposed felsitic minerals with particles of highly vesicular felspar and pumice, and concretionary nodules of manganese, a large proportion of which must be derived from submarine eruptions; thus while comparatively circumscribed deposits of augitic lava are accumulated around the volcanoes, the more siliceous portions, comprising the ash and vesicular felsitic scoria, are accumulated separately on the bottom of the ocean. Lyell, in his “Elements of Geology,” mentions that it can by no means be inferred that trachytes predominated at one period of the earth's history and basalt at another, for we know that trachyte lavas have been formed at many successive periods, and are still emitted from many active craters; but it seems to me that felspathic lavas have generally preceded augitic when a volcanic action has extended over long periods. Professor Judd has shown that in the extinct volcanic district of Schemnitz, in Hungary, lavas of an intermediate (acidic and basic) character preceded outbursts of extremely acid, and then of extremely basic character; the tertiary andesitic eruptions of Hungary forming an exact counterpart to those in the palæozoic in the British Isles.

Most of the older eruptive rocks have been affected by metamorphic action, many intensely so; the vesicular kinds have had their cavities filled with minerals, often of extraneous origin, forming zeolites and geodes of agate, or by segregation, zeolites forming often constituent portions of basalts. Chlorite, which always appears to have accompanied mineral changes, is generally present in considerable quantities in the older members of these rocks. There is also generally more lime, the potash and soda having been more readily dissolved out than the lime. The rock termed serpentine occurs with schists, and also as an intrusive rock, and apparently is usually the result of decomposition of olivine rocks—dimagnesian (ferrous, etc.) silicates—similar to the New Zealand dunite, or of materials derived from their disintegration.

One of the most interesting illustrations of the change produced by hydrothermal agency has been described by Professor Daubrée, who found that the water of the springs of Plombieres, in the Vosges, which have a temperature of 160° Fahr., had formed zeolites in the concrete of the Roman aqueduct built for conveying the water, the concrete being composed of lime, fragments of brick and sandstone. The minerals found include apophyllite, chabazite, and opal.

In the following table the relations of the various eruptive rocks forming dykes, lavas, and scoria are shown:—

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The characteristic ingredients of these leading varieties may be stated thus:—felstones have orthoclase felspar and quartz, the glassy conditions are pitchstones and perlites. Trachytes, their modern representatives, are composed almost wholly of a confused mass of crystals of sanidin without perceptible free quartz; they are often porphyritic, the glassy form is obsidian. Hornblende is frequently present in these acidic rocks. The diorites comprise the hornblendic basic rock with orthoclase and oligoclase felspars. The dolerites, their modern representatives, have augite with sanidin and Labradorite felspars, tachylite forming the glassy condition; it closely resembles obsidian. The ashy and tufaceous kinds are found consolidated into felstones and aphanite-slates; microscopic examination shows these slates to contain crystals with fused surfaces, or with vitreous coatings, and isolated shreds of glassy matter in strings or bands (Rutley, Q.J.G.S., vol. xxxv., p. 338.)

The glassy varieties have been formed by rapid cooling of the molten mass, for when basaltic rocks have been experimentally melted, and cooled slowly, a state very similar to the original has been attained; but when cooled rapidly, they have assumed a dark brittle glassy condition, resembling obsidian. The perfectly amorphous condition of common glass is seldom attained in the natural rock, minute crystals of pyroxene and felspar being generally more or less scattered through the glassy matrix. The glassy condition being a particularly unstable one, the obsidians and rocks with allied glassy structures like perlite have been altered into pitchstones,

Thames Goldfields. The bed-rock in this locality is a soft, grey-coloured felspathic tufa, with pyritpus leaders, weathering white and decomposing into a white clay. On page 40 of the report alluded to, an analysis of this rock is given in No. 4

The form assumed by the gold is apparently that of botryogen, a bisulphate of iron, which has been formed by the decomposition of pyrites. The measurement under the microscope of the angle of the oblique prisms is nearly 120°, the typical form of botryogen is 117° 34′; the latter angle is used in constructing figs. 1 and 2 in the diagram. Two crystalline forms are apparent, the one oblique prisms with the acute angles modified by the positive orthodome faces of the form 1 ∞ 1 (see fig. 1), the other oblique prisms with edges replaced by faces of the form 11 ∞ and ∞ 1⅔. In fig. 3 is shown a portion of the specimen, enlarged. This occurrence of gold in the form of casts of botryogen indicates that the deposition of gold in this district has extended over a great period of time, involving these changes, or of its redeposition in this form. In either case it is important evidence towards the more complete knowledge of the occurrence of gold in this district.

The following particulars are attached for convenience of reference of the crystallographic symbols:—

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I am indebted to Dr. Purchas, the finder of the specimen, for the opportunity of making the above description.

in 1881. The existence of 22 double canoes and 8 canoes in any one spot, is sufficient evidence of a large population. When Cook visited this place in about 1769, he saw very few boats. Dr. Forster in Cook's Second Voyage guessed the number of the Maoris at 100,000, “although,” as Colenso says, “he never saw any of the populous parts of the North Island.” Colenso quotes other estimates: Nicholas, in 1814, thought there were 150,000. Colenso thinks Forster's estimate far too low, because Forster only saw the sea coast, not going inland, and saw none on the whole west coast of the North Island, and therefore thought it uninhabited.

Amongst other authorities, I find that Cook, on one occasion, wrote there were 400,000 Maoris. In 1824, Major Cruise says there were nearly 3,000 present at a meeting at the Bay of Islands, and at another time a “vast number” of canoes. It would now be impossible to find anything like that number of people or canoes. The Rev. W. Williams, in 1835, estimated their numbers as not exceeding 200,000, and divides them thus:—

Major Druse, writing in 1819, or a year or two previously, says that at one place he saw 50 canoes, each armed by fifty or sixty fighting men—at least 2,500 fighting men. Where now should we find such a concourse? Te Whiti, in 1881, at his greatest gatherings, could muster somewhat less than 1,000 fighting men. In about 1835, the numbers of the Maoris were estimated at 120,000, and in 1840 at 114,000. Governor Grey's figures in 1849 are 120,000, and Mr. McLean's in 1853 are 60,000. McKay asserts that from about 1820, the date of introduction of the musket, to close of Te Rauparaha's wars, in about 1840, no less than 60,000 perished. Colenso, Taylor, and others, have made similar statements, all showing the existence of a dense population. The numerous remains of old hill-forts show a former large population (see “Old New Zealand”). In places in the Auckland Province, and between Hawera and Patea, these ruins are existing in great abundance; now, scarcely any natives are to be found there. Terry, writing in about 1842, says that Williams very much underrated them, and based his estimates very largely on the tribes connected with the Church Missionary Society. Terry says there were 150,000 in the North Island alone. Another writer, in 1840, guesses the number at 80,000. This is the lowest estimate of early date that I have been able to find, and even this lowest makes their numbers double those now living. Colenso says that the missionaries knew, on excellent data, that in 1834 there were 7,000 fighting men from the Bay of Islands northward; that number has dwindled to less

than 1,500. Colenso took the greatest pains to number accurately the natives in Hawke's Bay and part of Wairarapa, in 1847–48, and counted 3,704, and ascertained that there were 45 tribes and sub-tribes: seventeen years later he reckons them at 2,000. Judge Fenton showed that, in fourteen years (1844–58), there was a decrease in the Waikato of 19 per cent. In 1858, the same learned authority, on good data, apportions them thus:—

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Mr. Alexander McKay's census for the South and Stewart Islands in 1868 is:—

In census of 1881 the figures are:

Colenso again in 1863 estimated the entire population at 49,000. It would be mere waste of time to supply a further list of figures all more or less accurate, but none strictly so. According to the census of 1881, which is fairly correct, there are 24,370 males and 19,729 females = 44,099, but of this number upwards of 400 are half-castes.

These statistics with a host of others might be adduced to justify the widespread belief that the race is rapidly dying out. Every intelligent observer has had before his eyes continually, ample proof of their astonishingly rapid disappearance. Here, within a 5-mile radius of this very lecture-room, since this colony was founded exactly 42 years ago, see how the Maoris have disappeared. There are now within that area only 37. There were, 42 years ago, a pa at Ngahauranga, one at Kaiwarra, a few families living near the site of Dr. Featherston's house, a few at Mr. Izard's; about 50 people at the bottom of Hobson-street; about 20 at Wordsworth-street, and 60 at Te Aro (Heaphy). A very few years before that there were three pas on Miramar peninsula; in one bloody battle between two of these pas, there were 500 killed on one side, and 70 on the other-even allowing for exaggeration in the two last figures, it shows a large population where now no Maori exists. So too wherever we revisit after a lapse of 20 years we find the same thing—the abolition of the pas, or their tenancy by a fraction of their former population. I know one ready objection to this statement is,

that the natives are not dead, but only gone farther inland. This argument in the case of the Maoris in the South Island, is clearly disproved by the fact that it has long been possible there accurately to count every native, no matter how far back they may go. Altogether apart from the mere question of statistics, I am quite positive that this objection in this island is perfectly groundless. Take this island: the natives round this city have almost died out; at the Hutt, but a remnant exists; the pa at Waiwhetu is gone; there are no natives in the Wainui-o-mata valley; or up the Hutt valley. In the Wairarapa many pas have vanished, and but a remnant remains in the others. My own knowledge of Hawke's Bay, extending back about twentyfive years, assures me that recent statistics even do not prove sufficiently clearly the rapidity of extinction. In that short time I know of several populous kaingas quite deserted. I know that formerly, twenty years ago, there were a large number of natives in the district where now but very few exist. All along the east coast, from this spot to Napier, they have greatly dwindled. If we go up the other coast we find the same thing. About twenty years ago there were 300 living at Porirua and near neighbourhood, now there are 53. AtWaikanae some forty years ago there were 500 fighting men besides women and children, now there are only 20. There was a pa at Paikakariki, now one family dwells there. Farther up is Otaki, where the population has greatly dwindled, and so we may go up through Horowhenua, with a fraction of its former population, onwards through the now almost deserted Manawatu and Rangitikei, to Wanganui, and right along the coast to Parihaka and Taranaki. How many warriors could now be put in the field as compared with those who encountered our troops under General Cameron. Clearly the natives have “gone farther back” than Hawke's Bay and Taranaki. If we start at the North Cape and travel downwards from the Three Kings, we have seen by statistics but a fraction of their numbers now exist north of Auckland, and a journey southwards to the Waikato and Thames will reveal the same scantiness of population. Judge Fenton showed us how they decreased in the Waikato in a few years, and all observers admit that the natives are fewer in the centre of this island and about the East Cape than they were twenty years ago.

The proof is overwhelming, the natives have not gone farther back—they have died.

The Maoris and the weaker Morioris in the Chatham Islands are almost extinct. Bishop Selwyn preached to 1,000; now the entire population, Maoris and Morioris, is 126.

Without going into the still disputed question as to which great division of the human family the Malay race belongs, according to the best evidence it seems clear that the Maoris are a part of the race which stretches west

from Singapore to Madagascar, perhaps to South Africa, and west to Java, the Marquesas, the Sandwich Islands to Otaheite, over most of the Pacific Isles to Easter Island and New Zealand. Through all this vast range of land we find a decaying race.

De Quatrefages, in his work on “The Human Species,” writes:—Captain Cook, just a century ago, estimated the Kanakas in the Sandwich Islands at 300,000. In 1861 there were 67,084–about 22 per cent. of the original number. From another source I find that the Kanakas in 1832 were 130,817, and in 1872, 56,897. In the Marquesas, Porter guessed the population in 1813 at 19,000 warriors, giving a population of 70,000 or 80,000. In 1858 M. Jouan found 2,500 or 3,000 warriors, and about 11,000 other people. Cook and Forster estimated the population of Tahiti at upwards of 240,000. In 1857 the official census gave only 7,212, that is to say, a little more than 3 per cent. of the original population. De Quatrefages also adds that this decrease of population extends to all the islands of Polynesia, and instances Bass Island, where Davis counted 2,000 people in the beginning of the century, and where Moerenhaut found only 300 in 1874. I believe it is the same with the Papuan race in Fiji and other islands. In the “Malay Archipelago” Wallace tells us that the Dyaks and other branches are dying out, owing to the frequency of deaths and the infertility of the race. The large stone ruins of Easter Island tell of a bygone dense population, where now but a beggarly remnant exists.

It would be mere waste of time to go on accumulating further evidence; everywhere the evidence is clear and abundant that not only in New Zealand but all over the broad Pacific the race is steadily dying out. This steady diminution of the race is not a peculiarity of the Maoris; it is common to the Malay family generally. Certain writers please to call the Maoris a “provisional race,” but the phrase though learned means little. The Maori is becoming extinct, like many other races, from almost identical causes. All over the world we see some races progressive, some stationary, others decaying; others recently extinct, a few fossil. The Anglo-Saxon race is rapidly progressing; the French seem nearly stationary; the North American Indians are fast vanishing; so are the Bosjesmen. Soon will vanish the Ainos, the Eskimos, the Australian aborigines, the Kamskatdales, the Makalolos and the Morioris. Lately extinct are the Tasmanians the Charruas, the blacks of California. Long extinct are the race found as mummies in the caves of Madeira, the Cro-Magnon race; the people whose remains are found in the caves of the Pyrenees and the Perigord: still more anciently extinct is the race to whom belonged the fossil man of Neanderthal.

All over the world we see evidences abundant, clear, and indisputable, that races of mankind like individuals have their birth, their period of growth; some are fertile and give birth to other races; some races are sterile, merely propagating themselves for a time, but in either case invariably like individuals beginning to die and then becoming extinct. Such a race is the Maori, a small race inhabiting a strange land, multiplying rapidly, giving birth to one weakly offspring, the Morioris, and now steadily dying, just as do individuals. The race is “run out,” it is effete; seems thoroughly worn out, and its approaching death has been hastened by the struggles with a newer and a fresher race. The races of mankind are like individuals in this respect, each has its birth, its maturity, begets fresh races or individuals, and then slowly or rapidly decays. They die out just as certainly as do individuals. We as individuals have a certain time, bar accidents, to grow, increase, multiply, and decrease. I believe that races have the same, and that in time all the existing races, no matter how flourishing, will die out: in some instances leaving a progeny, in others none. The public settle the question of the dying out of the Maori race in an off-hand manner, by saying “the black man always speedily disappears before the white;” but that the advent of the white man alone is the sole cause is disproved by the dying out of the Dyaks in parts where the whites have barely reached; so, too, in other islands of the Pacific where the white race can have had at the utmost a trivial effect. Undoubtedly we do speedily kill the black races in all countries sufficiently cool for us to live and thrive in.

The rapid decrease of the Maoris is a startling fact when we recollect that for the last fifteen years they have had no devastating wars: that of late they have been living in peace among themselves, and in the South Island have not fought the Europeans or among themselves for thirty years. Formerly the tribes were always at war with adjacent tribes, and when not actually fighting were continually destroying each others crops. Formerly their food was hard to get, and poor when got: now the supplies are regular and far more nutritious. They all possess ample means. They never die of starvation. They can all obtain ample clothing. The struggle for existence is among them far less severe than it is amongst ourselves, yet our race, by natural means, apart from immigration, is increasing as rapidly as the other is decreasing. Moreover, there seems now to be less chance than ever of any union of the races. Half-castes appear to be far fewer proportionately than in the early days of the colony; and those few who do not revert to the semi-savage state, but become civilized, are an unproductive race. In the course of a few generations the Maoris will die out and leave no trace of their union with the whites.

To gain a clear view of the effects of the different causes leading to the extinction of the race it will be well to study very briefly the Maoris in their former wild and their present civilized conditions. Before we came to these islands the natives were dotted in clusters all over the islands, but more thickly in the northern one. These clusters were generally on small or lofty hills, with a wood near and a river at the base. As they were divided into many tribes, which were always ready to fight for their own protection, each small tribe, or parts of bigger tribes, entrenched themselves on the spurs of a mountain or the brow of a hill. One side of the hill was usually a steep ascent, and the other sides frequently defended by a ditch and ram-part. In these highly-placed forts they slept, descending by daylight to the damper lowlands or the swamps and rivers for fishing. Any food they got was irregular in supply, and nearly always hardly earned, almost always was bulky, but very innutrient. Their clothing was very scanty, and put on or off without any regard to so-called decency. They intermarried largely. Their lives were always harassed by actual warfare or a dread of assaults. They had few diseases, and as communication with different parts of the islands was rare, epidemics did not do much damage. The Maoris enjoyed an immunity from very many diseases which have long affected us, e.g., smallpox, syphilis, measles, scarlet fever, whooping-cough, typhus, and probably typhoid. But though they had few diseases, those few were deadly. Consumption in its various forms killed old and middle-aged and young. They suffered from a malarious fever, from diarrhœa, from bronchitis and pneumonia, and many from rheumatism. Rheumatism was a frequent scourge. Scrofula thinned the children's ranks. Epilepsy and dropsy were not infrequent. A species of leprosy (ngerengere) was prevalent. In addition to these and other diseases, cannibalism was the cause of death to many. Infanticide, especially female infanticide, was very common. Old people, both men and women, chiefly the latter, were allowed to die of neglect or starvation. They sometimes died from eating unhealthy eels or from a surfeit of lampreys. Suicide was exceedingly common, but is now rare. Murders were numerous. In the olden times, if a husband died the woman nearly always killed herself. Under the painful operation of tattooing some died; and lives were lost by the old warriors' dislike of dying in bed, for when they felt death approaching they used to arm themselves to the teeth, and then at night, gathering their remaining energies for one last struggle, would rush headlong into one of the enemies' camps, generally killing men, women, and children, before they themselves sank covered with wounds.

Numbers died because they were makuhied: were bewitched, died through sheer fright, after infringement of the tapu. Slaves were known to die

of nostalgia. Their knowledge of surgery being limited, they died frequently from slight wounds. Sometimes great Maori chiefs dropped dead from excessive excitement. In times of war, or of scanty food supply, the old women were killed. A few died from the bite of the katipo, or poisonous spider, and a few from eating poisonous berries, and some are said to have died from sunstroke.

Now, the Maoris have quitted all their old hill-forts, and live at the edge of a bush or a swamp, almost always on low-lying, damp, ill-drained spots. It was the author of “Old New Zealand” who first drew our attention to this most important fact. Their old hill-forts were sunny and airy; the winds blew away the odours, and they were often above the mists and dews that hang round their present habitations. Usually perched on the edge of a cliff, with a scanty humus beneath their whares, and below that again rocks which let the water escape, these places were always dry and tolerably clean. Now, however, they live in sheltered spots, with only a moderate amount of sunlight and but little wind, with abundance of morning and evening moistness; below, a thick black humus, with probably a clay basis which retains the water. This land lying low there is usually no subsoil and still less surface drainage. The soil all round their whares is often spongy with retained water and decaying organic matter; even the floor of their huts is frequently damp. In very many cases it would have been quite impossible for them to have chosen worse or more unhealthy sites for their dwellings. I am quite convinced that this question of change of site is infinitely more powerful in its effects than has hitherto been supposed. The chief disease that kills the Maoris is consumption. I believe it kills more than all the other diseases put together. In any assembly of Maoris there is sure to be heard a large proportion of coughs, with a death-knell ringing in their tones. We are apt to think consumption dreadfully disastrous to our own kith and kin, but among the Maoris its effects are still more terrible. Consumptive people among ourselves do frequently refrain from marriage for fear of its affecting their offspring, but among the Maoris no such sentiment prevails. No matter how consumptive they will marry, and the results are seen in the sickly offspring, dying early of kindred inherited diseases. Usually among ourselves, even if persons with a consumptive diathesis marry, they mate with healthy people who are not their kinsfolk. With the Maoris it is altogether different. I am quite convinced that this change of locality is one of the most important factors leading to extinction of the race. The whole evidence of modern medicine shows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the two chief causes of phthisis amongst all nations is the intermarriage of phthisical people, and dwelling on low, damp, ill-drained soils: yet these are the very things which the Maoris

seem to prefer doing. Amongst ourselves the awful ravages of phthisis may be either entirely checked or greatly abated, by care, by medicine, by nursing, and by change of climate; of all these the Maori knows nothing. He undergoes no medical treatment at all, or only in the last stages, when medicine is powerless; he never takes care of himself, he goes out in all weathers, gets soaked and does not change his clothes, and his food is not the well-cooked, wholesome, easily digestible food fit for an invalid; he never wears suitable warm clothing. This frightful scourge (phthisis) is still further aggravated by the close fetid air of their tiny whares, or the draughty condition of their badly made wooden houses. Again, as so many persons, healthy as well as unhealthy in all stages, sleep all huddled close together in their unventilated whares, they breathe and rebreathe each others unhealthy breaths. The consequence is that the naturally healthy catch the disease in large numbers. Amongst ourselves who have private sleeping rooms, we see the ill effects, but among the Maoris the results are awful to contemplate.

This evil habit of pitching their dwellings on low-lying swampy ground causes many deaths from rheumatism, from bronchitis, pneumonia, and low fever.

I wrote to a number of medical men to obtain their experience, and to them I am exceedingly grateful for much most useful information. Unfortunately the Maoris need not have their deaths certified to, and in a large class of diseases, especially those of women, they never consult a doctor. Owing to these causes I am unable to present to this society any statistics of disease; but still it is not difficult to detect the chief. The principal diseases of infants are scrofulous; large numbers die from scrofula in some shape or another. From the time they are weaned they eat anything the mother eats, and the consequence is that most Maori children look badly fed, big-bellied, with wasted limbs, and with eruptions about their orifices. They die largely from the effects of bad feeding, getting tabes mesenterica, chronic diarrhœa, atrophy. They suffer from swollen glands and eczematous eruptions. Some have hydrocephalus, acute and chronic. Dr. Spencer, who has for many years attended a Maori orphanage, says they improve wonderfully on admission; their bellies shrink; their limbs grow bigger, and their eruptions vanish; but about puberty they often get weak again and break out afresh with eruption. They are very subject to chronic peratitis.

Dr. Earle of Wanganui dilates on the many hundreds of children that die annually from dysentery and tabes mesenterica, brought on by improper food and the want of a milk diet. With regard to a milk diet, Mr. Locke writes that in those instances where the children are fed on milk they improve

results are rarely severe. My own feeling (remembering the frightful scourge it proved on its introduction to various parts of Europe) is one of astonishment at the smallness of the evil. Several doctors who practise largely among the Maoris assure me that they never saw true syphilis in a Maori. My own experience is that amongst the large number of Maoris I have seen I have not been able to detect any evils from this cause, yet I am quite sure that in any like number of low-living whites the evidences would be abundant. I have never seen Maori children with any marks of syphilis. Though I have searched everywhere and have tried to seek confirmatory evidence of the reports of the frightful ravages of syphilis, I am forced to the conclusion that they are unfounded, and that syphilis has been a very unimportant one among the many factors leading to the decrease of the Maoris.

On the other hand, I readily admit the influence of a milder form of lues venerea. The prevalence of this disease is so great as really to merit the term universal. It is probable that it existed mildly before we whites came here, and that we imported a severe variety of it. The prevalence of this disease in both sexes leads to sterility, by causing the inflammation of the secretory passages of both races, and especially probably in women, as is seen in a particular class of women in London, where the extension of this inflammation to the Fallopian ducts leads to their occlusion and a consequent sterility. It is my belief that this variety of disease will account for some of the barrenness existing among the women.

Leprosy, formerly common among the Maoris, has now almost disappeared, under the constant supply of nutritious food.

Looking then at the question as a whole, I am inclined to think that imported diseases have not been the chief causes leading to the disappearance of the Maori, but that they have only played a part with others. I think that other causes are more effective; in fact, with a few exceptions of two or three rather severe epidemics, and one frightfully severe, as mentioned by Colenso, that occurred many years ago, there is no evidence to show that, provided other causes did not exist, there would be sufficient power in these diseases to kill the race. Did such new diseases (we will suppose imbibed by us from the aborigines) attack us, our natural increase of population would soon repair their ravages in our ranks. As a matter of fact, the Maoris die chiefly from such diseases as phthisis, in all its protean forms, from bronchitis and pneumonia, and from renal affections, which are not imported diseases, whilst the children die because they are born weakly; and their chief foes are bad food, irregular clothing, and inherited diseases, and their low, damp habitations; whilst the imported diseases are not nearly so powerful in their effects as are these.

which time only three or four births were registered. In the Sandwich Islands, from among eighty married women, M. Delapelin found that only thirty-nine had children. There were only nineteen children in the twenty principal families of chiefs, and in the same islands, in 1849, the official statistics of M. Renny gave 4,520 deaths to only 1,422 births. The Kanakas, though separated by so many thousands of miles of water, are singularly like the Maoris in appearance, language, and mythology: therefore it is not a little strange to find among them sterility like that which exists among the Maoris. Nearly all the persons knowing the Maoris well whom I have happened to consult, are agreed on this point, viz., that many women are absolutely sterile, and that the others are only moderately fertile, having only one, two, or three children. The Maoris themselves recognize the fact but can assign no cause. Colenso says that children are becoming fewer every year, and that of the seven principal chiefs in Ahuriri, all but one was childless, and of the one who had four sons three were fruitless. Judge Fenton gives some remarkable statistics in his “Observations on the State of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of New Zealand, 1859.” In certain well-known tribes in the Waikato, between the years 1844 to 1858, there were: Deaths, 650; births, 320. He gives the following striking table of results:—

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Farther on in this book he estimates that the ratio of barren to productive Maori women is as 1 to 2.86. To account for this startling infertility many theories have been invented, but it is more than certain that the great bulk of them are imaginary and baseless. Doubtless this infertility arises from many causes, and not a single cause. I believe that the chief source of this evil is interbreeding; that the Maoris have almost always married in their own or in some nearly adjacent tribe. Nearly all the pure races of men and animals are infertile, as compared with the mongrels. Any reference to Darwin's “Plants and Animals under Domestication,” or his later work detailing his researches into the crossing and fertility of plants, will save the need of cumbering these pages with overwhelming proof of the need of crossing to maintain the fertility of

the race. Galton has demonstrated the infertility of aristocracies whose members married only with each other. These, and a host of other authorities, show that any race of man which breeds in and in, becomes more and more infertile, and the scanty progeny more and more sickly and likely to perish.

When the Maoris came here several centuries ago, they were probably not quite a pure race, but were Malays with an infusion of Papuan blood. This infusion of Papuan blood can, I think, be traced to this day, appearing every now and then amongst their lower classes. Arriving in a fresh and more invigorating climate than that to which they had been used, and finding the supplies of food abundant and easily got, their fertility increased by this slight cross with the Papuans; it was no wonder they multiplied rapidly, but the Papuan blood being only in small quantity, and always shunned and despised, was soon an insignificant quantity, and the Malay blood became purer and purer. As the Maoris spread over these islands and divided themselves into tribes, living far apart, usually at war with each other, breeding in and in was almost a necessity, and hence, as I believe, the chief cause of the barrenness of the race.

Though I am free to admit the existence of other, yet I feel sure that this is the chief cause. It has been alleged that early promiscuity on the part of very young Maori women is the chief cause, but though certainly an important item, it is not the chief, and is not more common now than formerly. Alcohol and tobacco are also credited as evil agents, but for these no proof exists. Syphilis has been blamed by many, but seeing how very slightly it has affected the race there is no evidence to show that it has at all decreased the fertility of the race. On the other hand, I believe that the frequency of the milder form of lues venerea has by its frequency and severity been a frequent cause of sterility in both sexes by inflammation of and subsequent stricture and closure of the various ducts, and especially obliteration of the passage through the Fallopian tubes. In exceptional cases I think that the introduction of horses has caused abortion. Some allege that hard work produces this infertility, but though it may aid, it cannot be an important factor, for Maori women have always had to work and carry heavy burdens, even in past times when the race was fertile. The Maoris thought that all sterility was due to the females, and disregarded the abundant proof that many men were always childless, no matter how many wives they took. Formerly if a woman were childless she took another mate for that reason and no other: now, however, she sometimes remains sterile and faithful. It is probable that the great number of males and the fewness of the women leads to sexual indulgences in great excess, thereby causing a diminished fertility.

aye, thousands of Maori words that are not to be found in the works he mentions; and it was my certain knowledge of this fact which led me to undertake the heavy work of the Polynesian (or New Zealand) Lexicon,^* which knowledge was also both increased and confirmed in me as the years of labour therein rolled on.

(2.) That the translation of the Bible into Maori was not the work of Archdeacon Maunsell. The New Testament was translated and in use before Archdeacon Maunsell arrived in New Zealand; so were the Book of Psalms, and other Books and parts of Books of the Old Testament; the original translation of the New Testament being mainly the work of the late Dr. Williams, the first Bishop of Waiapu. That Dr. Maunsell largely aided (under Bishop Selwyn) the zealous hard-working band of coadjutors concerned in the present edition is correct.

(3.) Then, most astonishing of all, Mr. Stack goes on to quote even Greek words from the Septuagint, to meet certain Maori words used in the present translation of the Old Testament!

In the conclusion of his paper, Mr. Stack winds up with saying,—“In common with the colour-blind the Maori confounded the lighter tints of several different colours,—and were blind to blue.”

In my paper (supra) I have shown the contrary of these assertions; and I bring this sentence forward here (re the blue) just to meet one of Mr. Stack's chief and earliest Septuagint quotations. He gives us, ακινθoν—blue (Exodus xxv., 4).

(1.) Is he aware that this Greek word means other dark colours equally with blue?

“By Homer, Odysseus' hair is likened to the hyacinth (ακινθoσ), and the ancient Greek commentators, to whom the conception was not yet so foreign as to us, quite correctly refer the simile to the black colour (⊸λασ). Pindar speaks in the same sense of violet locks. With Homer, also, the word κUalpha;νoσ (our cyan) is the deepest black. The mourning garment of Thetis he calls κνáνεoν, and at the same time ‘black as no other garment.’ The same colour-term is applied to the storm-cloud, and the black cloud of death, and several times by adding ⊸λασ it is distinctly explained as black.” —Gieger, Frankfort Lectures, 1867).

(2.) Would Mr. Stack be surprised to hear that perhaps the Hebrew word in that place (tepaylět) does not, or may not, mean blue? This is what some of the old and learned doctors have said about it in their trans-

lations and comments:—“Kimchi explains tepaylět by bleu; Abarbanel translates, silk; Ebn Exra, Rashi, and others, yellow; and Luther, yellow silk; others, indigo—(but ακινθoσ is not exclusively blue),” etc., etc. (Dr. Kalisch, in loc.)

Mr. Stack further says (p. 154),—“The Maoris appear to have reached the third stage of colour-sense development, when, all at once, the arrival of Europeans revealed to them the entire scale of colours possessed by the highest races of mankind.”

Mr. Stack will find that in the earliest mental productions that are preserved to us of the various peoples of the earth the colour blue is not mentioned at all.

“Let me first mention the wonderful, youthfully fresh hymns of the Rigveda, consisting of more than 10,000 lines; these are nearly all filled with descriptions of the sky. Scarcely any other subject is more frequently mentioned; the variety of hues which the sun and dawn daily display in it,—day and night, clouds and lightnings, the atmosphere and the ether,—all these are with inexhaustible abundance exhibited to us again and again in all their magnificence; only the fact that the sky is blue could never have been gathered from these poems. * * * The Veda hymns represent the earliest stage of the human mind that has been preserved in any literature; but as regards the blue colour, the same observation may be made of the Zendavesta, the books of the Parsees, to whom, as is well known, light and fire, both the terrestrial and heavenly, are most sacred, and of whom one may expect an attention to the thousand-fold hues of the sky similar to that in the Vedas. The Bible, in which, as is equally well known, the sky or heaven plays no less a part, seeing that it occurs in the very first verse, and in upwards of 430 other passages besides, quite apart from synonymous expressions, such as ether, etc., yet finds no opportunity either of mentioning the blue colour. * * * The Koran does not know the blue colour either, however much it speaks of the heavens. Nor is the blue sky mentioned in the Edda hymns. * * * Nay, even in the Homeric Poems the blue sky is not mentioned, although in the regions where they originated it exercises such a special charm on every visitor. * * * The ten books of Rigveda hymns, though they frequently mention the earth, no more bestow on it the epithet green than on the heavens that of blue. They speak of trees, herbs, and fodder-grass, of ripe branches, lovely fruit, food-yielding mountains, of sowing and ploughing, but never of green fields. Still more surprising is the same phenomenon in the Zendavesta.

“Aristotle, in his ‘Meteorology,’ calls the rainbow tri-coloured—viz., red, yellow, and green. Two centuries before, Xenophanes had said, ‘What they call Iris is likewise a cloud, purple, reddish, and yellow in

appearance;’ where he leaves out the green, or, at all events, does not clearly define it. In the Edda, too, the rainbow is explained to be a tricoloured bridge.

“Democritus and the Pythagoreans assumed four fundamental colours, black, white, red, and yellow, a conception which for a long time obtained in antiquity. Nay, ancient writers (Cicero, Pliny, and Quintilian) state it as a positive fact that the Greek painters, down to the time of Alexander, employed only those four colours. * * * The Chinese have since olden times assumed five colours, viz., green in addition to the foregoing.”—(Gieger, loc. cit.)

And so Max Müller.—“There is hardly a book now in which we do not read of the blue sky. But in the ancient hymns of the Veda, so full of the dawn, the sun, and the sky, the blue sky is never mentioned; in the Zendavesta the blue sky is never mentioned; in Homer the blue sky is never mentioned; in the Old and even in the New Testament the blue sky is never mentioned. It has been asked whether we should recognize in this a physiological development of our senses, or a gradual increase of words capable of expressing finer distinctions of light. No one is likely to contend that the irritations of our organs of sense, which produce sensation, as distinguished from perception, were different thousands of years ago from what they are now. They are the same for all men, the same even for certain animals, for we know that there are insects which react very strongly against differences of colour. * * * Democritus knew of four colours, viz., black and white, which he treated as colours, red and yellow. Are we to say that he did not see the blue of the sky because he never called it blue, but either dark or bright? * * * In common Arabic, as Palgrave tells us, the names of green, black, and brown, are constantly confounded to the present day. It is well known that among savage nations we seldom find distinct words for blue and black; but we shall find the same indefiniteness of expression when we inquire into the antecedents of our own language. Though blue now does no longer mean black, we see in such expressions as ‘to bea black and blue’ the closeness of the two colours. * * * As languages advance, more and more distinctions are introduced, but the variety of colours always stands before us as a real infinite. * * As no conception is possible without a name, I shall probably be asked to produce from the dictionaries of Veddas and Papuas any word to express the infinite; and the absence of such a word, even among more highly civilized races, will be considered a sufficient answer to my theory. Let me, therefore, say once more that I entirely reject such an opinion. * * * The infinite was present from the very beginning in all finite perceptions, just as the blue colour was, though we find no name for it in the dictionaries of Veddas and

Papuas. The sky was blue in the days of the Vedic poets, of the Zoroastrian worshippers, of the Hebrew prophet, of the Homeric singers, but though they saw it they knew it not by name; they had no name for that which is the sky's own peculiar tint, the sky-blue.”—(Lectures at the Charter House, 1878: Lecture I).

“It is noteworthy down to what a late period both the Greeks and the Romans still confounded blue and violet, especially with grey and brown. Even long after scientific observation had separated these colours they seem to have been mixed up together in popular conception. And thus it happened that Theocritus, and, in imitation of him, Virgil, by way of excuse for the bronzed hue of a beautiful face, could still say, “Are not the violets, too, and the hyacinths black?” With a similar intention Virgil says: “The white privets fall; it is the black hyacinths which are sought after and loved.” Nay, even Cassiodorus, at the beginning of the sixth century after Christ, gives an account of the four colours employed in the Circensian Games, which, as is well known, sometimes acquired a fatal significance: green had been dedicated to spring, red to summer, white, on account of the hoar-frost, to autumn, blue to the cloudy winter—venetus nubilœ hiemi. Classical antiquity, in fact, possessed no word for pure blue. * * * The Romanic languages found indeed no fit word for blue in the original Roman tongue, and were obliged partly to borrow it from the German. Thus, among others, the French bleu and the older Italian biavo, are, as is well known, borrowed from the German blau, which, in its turn, in the earliest time signified black.”—(Gieger, loc. cit.)

I have been at the trouble of bringing forward all this first-class authority evidence, to show—(1) that “the highest races” did not possess “the entire scale of colours;”—(2) that had the Maoris not been already in possession of the knowledge of colours, and of their shades and hues, “the arrival of Europeans” among them would not suddenly have “revealed” such to them;—and (3) that such a wholesale mental revolution, as Mr. Stack here states, has never, and could never take place “all at once.”

I feel, however, that I must specially notice two or three more of Mr. Stack's statements.

He says (p. 155)—“Kura (red) is used very often instead of whero to describe redness in any inanimate object.”

Mr. Stack evidently never heard of any of their (many) old supernatural beings, still believed to be existing, called Kura; and was not Kura a common term for the chief men in the olden time? e.g.—“I te oranga o tenei motu, he Kura te tangata.”

Again (p. 156)—“While they regarded the rainbow as a divinity, * * to their organ of sight it presented one characteristic tint, and that was ma (white), or allied to light.”

This assertion I have already fully met in my paper (supra); but I would further ask—Why, then, was it so commonly called Kahukura—“scarlet,” or red, garment?

Mr. Stack also quotes the well-known passage in Isaiah i, 18, for “scarlet and crimson.” But the “scarlet” of King James' days (the time of the translators of the English Bible) was not the same identical colour as the scarlet of to-day. Our modern scarlet was not then known.

Again (p. 155), Mr. Stack says, “Pounamu, or greenstone, * * * is sometimes used now as a colour-term. Karupounamu=green-eyed, is the term applied to persons with light-coloured hazel eyes, but I never heard pounamu used to describe the colour of the sea.”

I refer Mr. Stack to one of “the few standard works” which he quotes —Sir G. Grey's “Mythology,” pp. 158, 159 (or to his “Poetry of the New Zealanders,” pp. xciii., xciv.), where he will find two sentences in excellent Maori, re the colour of the eyeball, and of the water, in both of which the pounamu is used as a simile.^* Evidently, he has also overlooked the little bird called Titipounamu (Acanthisitta chloris);^† the shark called Tahapounamu; the lizard called Pounamu-kakanorua; the early winter potato of the Ngapuhi tribe called Pounamu; our northern lakes called Rotopounamu; and the Aupounamu, the Waipounamu, etc., etc. Again, in my two editions of the Maori Bible (one in 12mo. and one in 8vo.), the passage in Esther i. 6, contains the word pounamu for green colour, and not that “Maoricized” abomination—karini—which Mr. Stack quotes.

Mr. Stack also says (p. 156), “At the suggestion of Europeans the indigoblue plumage of the pakura (Porphyrio melanotus) is sometimes employed to indicate the colour, which before intercourse with Europeans was unrecognized.” These two statements (which I have italicized) I deny; and I should not care to do so here, only to show that I had written to the direct contrary in 1865 (“Essay on the Maori Races,” § 33).^‡

Further, Mr. Stack says (same page), “No words are found in the Maori language to express violet, brown, orange, and pink colours; but there are no less than three words to express pied or speckled objects.” This is

incorrect, as my paper (in part) will show, where brown, orange, and pink are brought forward. And as to there being “no less than three words for speckled objects,” I know more than a dozen!

Again, Mr. Stack says (p. 156),—“Further proof of their imperfect perception of colour is furnished by the fact that the Maoris have never shown any real appreciation of floral charms. * * * Flowers generally were despised, and the greatest astonishment was expressed by Maoris in the early days, when they observed the pains taken by colonists to cultivate any but flowers of the gaudiest hues.”

Here I observe,—(1) Flowers were not despised; very far from it. It was owing to their fading so quickly, especially when in close contact with the human body; I have known, however, young chiefs often to fix a flowering sprig in their ears. It was not the national custom of the Maori women to decorate their hair, for they generally wore it cropped (vide Cook and others); but I knew them at an early date to bind their hair with a graceful wreath of Clematis (C. colensoi, and C. hexasepala), and of Lycopodium volubile, and not unfrequently with a neat green fillet of fresh flax. (See plate xix., in Parkinson's “Journal;” Parkinson was Sir Joseph Banks' draughtsman, and here in New Zealand with him.) (2) The Maoris never wantonly destroyed “right and left” the shrubs and small trees around them,—like the “superior” or (to use Mr. Stack's own words) “the higher races” invariably did; it was a pleasing sight to see their hastily putup booths or “tabernacles” in travelling, or abutting on their country plantations and river and seaside fishing grounds, their karaka fruit and bird preserves,—always made in a snug bowery place; even the common privies of their pas (towns) were often so situated, and I have known such public spots with planted and trained shrubs and creepers (Solanum aviculare, and Muhlenbeckia adpressa) growing over them; and they never cut down the trees growing near for firing, fencing, or any purpose; rather than do such wanton acts, they would travel miles to procure poles, sticks, etc.^* (3) That “astonishment” experienced “in the early days” was not re flowering plants of non-gaudy hues, but plants not producing fruit (tubers, etc.). From long before Mr. Stack's earliest recollection the Maoris planted with “pains” the potato, the onion, the melon, and the cabbage; the flowers of these did not possess “gaudy hues;” but being a practical people, a true race of hard-working agriculturists, they were astonished at such waste of labour, good ground and fences, in non-productive plants.

Mr. Stack also says (p. 158),—“They (the Maoris) seem to have lost all sense of harmony in colouring.” Qu. Could they lose what (he had repeatedly said) they never possessed?

the means of continually adding to this list. Still the general conclusions arrived at in the “Flora Novæ-Zealandiæ” have not been materially altered by recent discoveries.

Sir Joseph Hooker was struck by the preponderance of Australian types among those plants which he found to be common both to New Zealand and other countries of the world. Nearly one-fourth of these plants were Australian, nearly one-eighth South American, and one-tenth common to both Australia and South America. Of the remainder about one-twelfth were shown to be European and one-sixteenth antarctic. When we find similar plants in two widely-separated parts of the globe, we are naturally led to consider how they have reached these distant localities, and if no satisfactory solution of the question is afforded by an examination of their structural means of dispersion, we are further tempted to speculate on the former land connections which have existed. The preponderance of Australian plants in New Zealand is not to be accounted for by proximity alone, as the wide extent of sea which separates the countries forms the most effectual of all barriers to the migration of the majority of plants. Sir J. Hooker points out that no theory of transport of the forms common to the two regions will account for the absence of “the Eucalypti and other Myrtaceæ, of the whole immense genus of Acacia, and of its numerous Australian congeners,” or the absence of Casuarina, Callitris, Dilleniaceæ, etc., and the variety of such large Australian orders as Proteaceæ, Rutaceæ, and Stylidieæ. Nor will any theory of variation account for these facts. And he continues: “Considering that Eucalypti (Myrtaceæ) form the most prevalent forest feature over the greater part of South and East Australia, rivalled by the Leguminosæ alone, and that both these Orders (the latter especially) are admirably adapted constitutionally for transport, and that the species are not particularly local or scarce, and grow well wherever sown, the fact of their absence from New Zealand cannot be too strongly pressed on the attention of the botanical geographer, for it is the main cause of the difference between the floras of these two great masses of land being much greater than that between any two equally large contiguous ones on the face of the globe.” Read in the light of our accumulated knowledge, the following remark is of interest: “New Zealand, however, does not appear wholly as a satellite of Australia in all the genera common to both, for of several there are but few species in Australia, which hence shares the peculiarities of New Zealand rather than New Zealand those of Australia.” That is to say, that he saw that those plants which occur both in Australia and New Zealand had not necessarily all passed from the former to the latter country, but that in many cases the opposite had occurred. After describing the affinities existing between the plants of New

Zealand and those of South America, Europe, and the antarctic regions respectively, and further pointing out some remarkable Pacific Island peculiarities in our flora, Hooker concludes by stating that the existing botanical relationships “cannot be accounted for by any theory of transport or variation,” but that they are “agreeable to the hypothesis of all being members of a once more extensive flora which has been broken up by geological and climatic causes.”

Leaving out of account minor speculations on this subject, we may next consider the second writer named, who deals—although indirectly—with the question.

Prof. Hutton's theory^*, deduced from the distribution of the struthious birds in the southern hemisphere, is that there formerly existed a great “antarctic continent stretching from Australia through New Zealand to South America, and perhaps on to South Africa. This continent must have sunk, and Australia, New Zealand, South America, and South Africa, must have remained isolated from one another long enough to allow of the great differences observable between the birds of each country being brought about. Subsequently New Zealand must have formed part of a smaller continent, not connected either with Australia or South America, over which the moa roamed. This must have been followed by a long insular period, ending in another continent still disconnected from Australia and South America, which continent again sank, and New Zealand assumed somewhat of its present form.”

It is of course assumed that this former extensive antarctic continent existed at a date anterior to the first occurrence of mammals either in Australia or South America, and consequently that all subsequent immigrants from Australia, or from the islands lying to the north, must have found their way across the intervening expanses of ocean. Professor Hutton recognizes many of the difficulties in the way of this theory, as, for example, the occurrence of grass-birds (Sphenæacus) in both Australia and New Zealand, and the existence of the genus Ocydromus (woodhens, etc.) in New Zealand, Lord Howe's Island, and New Caledonia; as the birds of both these genera are almost or quite unable to fly.

The examination of our fresh-water fish leads him to the conclusions “either that our connection with Australia was later than with South America, or that in the old continent New Zealand and Australia were inhabited by one, and South America by another species” of the grayling family. “The fresh-water fish also prove that our connection with the

Chatham and Auckland Islands was much later than with Australia.” And then he goes on to say:—“The distribution of Anguilla latirostris, which is not found nearer than China (and of A. obscura, a closely allied species, which occurs in the Fiji Islands), adds its testimony to that of Lotella and Ditrema (other species named by him), of a former connection with that part of the world, not by way of Australia; and we shall find that this remarkable connection with China and the Indian Archipelago, thus dimly shadowed out by the fishes, gets stronger and stronger as we review the invertebrate animals.”

The examination of these lower forms leads to the same general conclusions—a strong relationship on one hand with Australia, and a similar, but distinct, relationship with islands and countries to the north.

In summarizing the facts of the geographical distribution of the fauna, the following results are arrived at by him:—1. “A continental period during which South America, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa were all connected, although it is not necessary that all should have been connected at the same time, but New Zealand must have been isolated from all before the spread of mammals, and from that time to the present it has never been completely submerged. This continent was inhabited by struthious birds,” etc., etc.

2. After a period of subsidence, a second continent came into existence, “stretching from New Zealand to Lord Howe's Island and New Caledonia, and extending for an unknown distance into Polynesia, but certainly not so far as the Sandwich Islands.” And while this continent was connected with China either directly or by a chain of islands, it must have been cut off from the New Hebrides by a strait.

3. “Subsidence again followed, and New Zealand was reduced for a long time to a number of islands, upon many of which the moa lived.” This supposition is necessary to account for the number of species of Dinornis which formerly existed, as the birds must have been “isolated from one another for a sufficiently long period to allow of specific changes being brought about.”

4. Elevation ensued, the isolated islands became connected together into one large island, which was not however connected with Polynesia, and over which the various species of moa roamed. And lastly,

5. By a process of subsidence the islands assumed something of their present form.

This theory is a most ingenious one, and is well worked out, and had available information been at hand as to the depth of the circumjacent seas, no doubt many of the conclusions arrived at would have been modified. The geological evidences are adduced in support of it, and though the dis-

tribution of the flora is not critically gone into, certain remarkable facts of the distribution of genera such as Eucalyptus, Stilbocarpa, Metrosideros and others, are brought forward by way of corroboration.

Some four years after the publication of Professor Hutton's paper, Mr. A. R. Wallace's great work on the “Geographical Distribution of Animals” came out, in which due consideration is given to the question of the origin of the New Zealand fauna, and to the discussion of Professor Hutton's views. Mr. Wallace in this work does not agree with the idea that there was a former great antarctic land connection, but believes that there was a great southward extension of land, perhaps considerably beyond the Macquaries, and that this being within the range of floating ice during the colder epochs, and within easy reach of the antarctic continent during the warm periods, there arose “that interchange of genera and species with South America, which forms one of the characteristic features of the natural history of New Zealand.” Professor Hutton's theory is primarily based on the distribution of the struthious birds, but Mr. Wallace is of opinion that the ancestral struthious type probably once spread over the larger portion of the globe, and that as higher forms, particularly of the Carnivora, became developed, it was exterminated everywhere except in those regions where it was free from their attacks, and that in these regions it developed into special forms adapted to surrounding conditions. This conclusion is supported and rendered almost certain by the discovery of remains of this order in Europe in eocene deposits, and by the occurrence of an ostrich among the fossils of the Siwalik Hills.

While considering that no other form of animal inhabiting New Zealand requires a land connection with distant countries to account for its presence, Mr. Wallace concludes, in accordance with principles well established in an earlier part of his work, that the existence is demonstrated of an extensive tract of land in the vicinity of Australia, Polynesia, and the Antarctic Continent, without having been actually connected with any of these countries, since the period when mammalia had peopled all the great continents.

Last year the issue of Mr. Wallace's most interesting work on “Island Life,” added another contribution to our knowledge of the question under discussion, and the three chapters devoted to New Zealand put the problems very clearly before us. A very important factor, and one which had not hitherto been considered, is now introduced—viz., the relative depths of the seas surrounding Australia and New Zealand. It is shown, by the aid of a map, that if the whole of the circumjacent ocean, which is at present less than 1,000 fathoms in depth, was to be elevated above sea-level, a very

remarkable change in the conformation of the existing land would take place. New Zealand would be extended very greatly to the west and northwest, and two long narrow arms would stretch, one to Lord Howe's Island, and the other by Norfolk Island to the Great Barrier Reef, and thus a connection with North-eastern Australia would be made. The same elevation would extend the area of Australia round its western, southern, and eastern coasts, while a long tongue of land would unite it with Tasmania, and would reach to the 50th parallel S. latitude. But even with this great elevation of 6,000 feet, a wide sea would remain between New Zealand and temperate Australia. The northern extension of Australia would connect it on the one hand with Malaysia, Borneo, and Celebes, while from New Guinea a broad eastern extension would include the New Hebrides. Starting from these indications Mr. Wallace shows that we ought to expect to find that New Zealand was most probably connected at a remote period “with tropical Australia and New Guinea, and, perhaps, at a still more remote epoch, with the great southern continent by means of intervening lands and islands,” as “a submarine plateau at a depth somewhere between one and two thousand fathoms stretches southward to the antarctic continent.”

It is not my intention here to follow Mr. Wallace in all the arguments he adduces to show the origin of our fauna, but a few of his facts are suggestive and confirmatory of his theory, as opposed to that of Professor Hutton, which he again discusses at some length. Thus our struthious birds are shown to be allied, not to the rheas of South America, but to the cassowaries and emus of North Australia and New Guinea. Again, “the starling family, to which four of the most remarkable New Zealand birds belong (the genera Creadion, Heteralocha, and Calleas), is totally wanting in temperate Australia, and is comparatively scarce in the entire Australian region, but is abundant in the Oriental region, with which New Guinea and the Moluccas are in easy communication. It is certainly a most suggestive fact that there are more than sixty genera of birds peculiar to the Australian continent (with Tasmania), many of them almost or quite confined to its temperate portions, and that no single one of these should be represented in temperate New Zealand.”

But this connection with tropical Australia must necessarily have been at a remote period, before the latter received its mammalian fauna, or else that portion of Australia which was in connection with New Zealand “was itself isolated from the mainland, and was thus without a mammalian population.” And this is the essentially novel and interesting part of the theory which Mr. Wallace seeks to prove by an examination of our flora, and by the existing geological conditions of Australia.

Stated concisely, his conclusions are that for a long period of time Australia was divided into two islands, a western and an eastern. In the former of these, the peculiarly characteristic Australian genera, both of plants and animals, originated. The eastern island stretched in a long narrow line from the tropics to the south of Tasmania, and in connection with its tropical portion there was probably a prolongation of New Zealand to the north-west. By this bridge, with its southerly and south-easterly ramifications, a stream of immigrants set in from the tropical regions further north, so that numerous genera and even species of plants, as well as some animals, were spread along both shores of the sea separating New Zealand from Australia. The subsequent depression of the northern area caused a separation of New Zealand from tropical Australia, while the elevation of the comparatively shallow sea separating the western from the eastern island, united these two into the great continental island of Australia, over the whole of which the peculiar western forms spread rapidly, and apparently at a much greater rate than the tropical and eastern species did. While the presence of the Australian, Asiatic, and Polynesian elements in the New Zealand flora are traceable to this former land connection, the antarctic and South American forms are believed to be due to immigration from outlying islands and extensions of land to the south, and the European, or more correctly the arctic element, is explained by the extraordinarily aggressive character of the so-called Scandinavian flora, which has enabled it to push its colonists over the three great southern areas, viz., South Africa, South America and Australasia.

Mr. Wallace's explanations of the origin of our flora must commend themselves as extremely satisfactory to every one capable of judging of the questions under consideration. Our subsequent knowledge may modify some of his conclusions to a slight extent, but it is by the publication of such hypotheses and theories, and the application of them for the solution of difficult problems, that correct ideas are most rapidly attained. Not only is our interest heightened by such speculations, but definite issues are placed before our minds, and we are enabled to judge more and more accurately of these, and to recognize how vast the field to be traversed is. It is well to bear in mind that as our stock of facts increases, so also does our knowledge of our ignorance, and that the latter often increases in a much more rapid ratio than the former. We begin by discussing a limited question, satisfied perhaps that we have sufficient information accumulated to enable us to give a definite answer, but at every turn collateral points are raised, until at last we feel ourselves face to face with an overpowering mass of questions all demanding solution, and are at the same time conscious of our inability to grapple with them. But it is only given to the few—to a

very limited few indeed—to be able to generalize and build up into a homogeneous whole the heterogeneous materials collected by the multitude. We can all help to accumulate these materials together, leaving it to the master-minds of science to use the fruits of our labour.

I have very briefly attempted to show what are the principal theories enunciated to account for our flora. I now propose to examine some of the modes by which plants become distributed, particularly noticing their application to New Zealand plants, and further, to show a little more in detail than Mr. Wallace could afford to do in a general work, the relations of our flora to that of Australia.

In examining such a problem as the distribution of plants, it is manifest that one of the most important considerations to be taken into account is their mode of dispersal, and chiefly, of course, the mode of dispersal of their seeds. Some plants, such as the strawberry, no doubt have the power of spreading themselves over wide areas by means of their long trailing shoots, as we see this plant doing at the present day wherever it has been introduced. But even the strawberry appears to be dispersed much more by its seeds than its suckers, and it is the seed therefore which must be considered chiefly. The most important agents concerned in the dispersal of seeds are (1) the wind; (2) birds or other animals; and (3) ocean currents. Besides these, icebergs may have been the means of bringing some plants to our shores; rivers have certainly distributed them from higher to lower levels; and lastly, human agency has been an efficient cause in late years. But for the first of these extra causes—viz., icebergs—we have no data beyond very general ones to go upon, and the other two have little bearing on the wide question of the origin of the flora.

• to a specially South American order, is similarly characterized, but its occurrence here has no special significance, as Australia possesses an endemic species as well as New Zealand. The genera Epilobium and Parsonsia both have tufts of hair on their seeds to aid in their dispersal; the former is a very wide-spread genus in all temperate regions, and some of its species are common to both hemispheres; while the latter is an Asiatic and Australian genus. The only other contrivances which aid in the wind-dispersal of our New Zealand plants are wings on the fruits or seeds. These occur, but feebly developed, on the nuts of Fagus, and on the seeds of Knightia, Dammara, and Libocedrus. The first of these occurs in both the north and south temperate regions; but our and the Australian species are all probably of antarctic origin. The second genus has one New Caledonian representative, and the third is Australian, Malaysian, and Polynesian in its distribution, while Libocedrus is found only in New Zealand and South America.

While special adaptations for wind-distribution are apparently few in New Zealand plants (if we except the Compositæ), there are no doubt many seeds which are readily blown about by reason of their small size and lightness. I have no data to guide me here, but will instance the order Orchideæ, all the species of which have minute, light seeds, and all the genera of which are either Australian or from further north, or have an Australian facies.

• Australia and countries to the north as well as New Zealand. Coriaria, Fuchsia, and Callixene are the only New Zealand genera with succulent fruits which occur in South America, but not in Australia, or any other land to the north of New Zealand. When it is remembered that most of our land birds are either characteristic of the Australian region or are allied to Australian forms, a certain amount of light is thrown upon this subject. It must not, however, be supposed that the possession or the want of succulent fruit is a character of great importance or significance; it is probably a very minor character, as even in the same species (e.g., Gaultheria antipoda) we may find great differences in the extent to which succulent tissue is developed in the pericarp of the fruit. Still it constitutes one of those minor coincidences, the sum of which, when taken together, throws considerable light on this and kindred questions.

Besides swallowing the fruits of plants and rejecting the seeds, birds carry seeds attached to their plumage. A few grasses may be thus carried by means of their hispid awns, and the seeds of some Pittosporums may adhere by their glutinous surface, but with these exceptions I only know of two genera which owe their means of dispersal to any special contrivance which enables their seeds to adhere to passing objects; these are Acæna and Uncinia. In the former genus, the four angles of the persistent calyx are produced into spines, which in the majority of the species bear small barbs at their apex, and the fruit thus adheres very readily; the genus is confined to the southern hemisphere, except in America, where it has spread as far as Mexico and California, and in Polynesia as far as the Sandwich Islands. The occurrence of the barb is a very peculiar feature in the New Zealand species. The common piripiri (A. sanguisorbæ) is a native of Australia, Tasmania, and Tristan d'Acunha, as well as New Zealand, and the calyx-spines are always barbed. A. adscendens, another barbed species, occurs also in Fuegia and the Falkland Islands, while A. novæ-zealandiæ, a third barbed species, though endemic, is altogether too near A. sanguisorbæ to rank as an exception. The other four species are also endemic, and of these A. depressa bears barbs, while the other three, A. microphylla, buchanani, and inermis, are almost entirely without them. The barbs, while no doubt of use in adhering to the feathers of birds, are best fitted to stick to the hair and skin of passing animals, and I think that in these smooth-spined Acænas we have a case of loss of an organ through disuse.

The other specially furnished genus is Uncinia, sedges which occur chiefly in the southern hemisphere, but range as far north as the mountains of Abyssinia. The seed in every species is furnished with a long hooked bristle which springs from the base of the nut, and projects out of the utricle or sac enclosing the fruit. Our species are mostly endemic, but one

is almost identical with a Fuegian species, and one or two with Tasmanian forms. It appears to me probable that the singular Chatham Island Lily (or Forget-me-not), Myosotidium nobile, is derived from an originally barbed plant, and that by long isolation it has lost the barbed bristles on the nuts characteristic of the Australian genus Cynoglossum, its nearest allies, just as it has lost the hispid character considered so distinctive of other Boragineæ.

The last mode specified in which birds carry seeds, is—attached to the mud or earth which clings to their feet. This subject has already been so carefully and conclusively worked out, particularly by Mr. Darwin in the “Origin of Species,” that I need not do more than refer to it. Sir J. D. Hooker, in the recently-published (1879) account of the botany of Kerguelen Island (Challenger Expedition Reports), considers that the few species of flowering plants of that island, presenting, as they do, a decided Fugian facies, have been thus brought by land birds. These are very abundant on the Falkland Islands, where the vegetation is identical with that of colder South America, and favoured by the prevalent westerly gales and the numerous stepping-stones, probably in the form of islands formerly existing, these land birds have probably found their way to Kerguelen Island. And he goes on to say that “the absence of such birds from the present avi-fauna of the island offers no obstacle to such a speculation, as such immigrants would on arrival speedily be destroyed by the predatory gulls and petrels of the island.” It is probable that some of the antarctic and South American forms occurring in New Zealand, and also in Tasmania and South-east Australia, have been thus introduced; and this probability is increased if we assume, with Mr. Wallace, that changes similar to those which have occurred in the arctic regions have also taken place in the antarctic, viz., that great alternations of climate have occurred in past ages, during some of which the now ice-clad antarctic continent bore an abundant flora of south-temperate forms, obtained probably from South America, the nearest continental area.

• perate climate in the antarctic regions, this mode of distribution may have sufficed to introduce some species into New Zealand, but it appears somewhat improbable that it still continues to any considerable extent. A correct knowledge of the oceanic currents which impinge on our coasts, will alone enable us to form an estimate of this means of plant immigration, and this information I do not possess.

Having considered very briefly these modes of plant dispersal, and noticed the geographical distribution and relationships of those genera which have been affected chiefly by their modifications of form, I would take a brief glance at the endemic forms which occur so abundantly in our islands. As these have probably all originated in or near the localities where they now exist, they can only aid us in the solution of the present question by their affinities. Many of these affinities are very difficult to establish, but in the majority of cases where the relationship of our endemic species to the flora of other countries is evident, it is found that Australian forms greatly predominate. Long isolation, together with complete change in their environment, has probably served to modify many of the immigrants, so that their affinities have become obscured, and this has acted in many cases so effectually as to mask them altogether. Usually variation first appears in the habit of the plant, and we see this in the form of the foliage, etc., of Ranunculus lyallii, our coriaceous Veronicas, Olearias, Ligusticums, etc. The same change is seen in recently-introduced plants, as in the common watercress (Nasturtium officinale), which in New Zealand rivers shows a tendency to assume a very different habit from its European parent. Protection against some forms of insect enemies, probably Orthop-terous, appears also to have played an effectual part in modifying the epidermal structures of many of our species, and may partly account for the prevalence of coriaceous-leaved and woolly plants, among the alpine species in particular. But we have little data here to go upon; and before passing on to the last part of this address I will just point out a few peculiarities of structure in our plants, which are of interest and full of suggestiveness.

One of these is the scarcity of spiny or prickly plants. As the function of spines and prickles is probably that of defence against mammalian enemies, we can readily understand the paucity of such contrivances in our plants. Even the apparent exceptions go to prove the rule in nearly every case. Where such defensive modifications do occur, we notice that the plants are usually to be found outside of New Zealand, and are most probably of foreign origin, their weapons of defence having been developed in countries where they were of service, and the New Zealand immigrants not having had sufficient time to lose them. Thus Discaria toumatou has its

branches and branchlets reduced to spines; but the genus is wide-spread in the southern hemisphere, and our species is almost identical with an Australian one. So strong a case cannot be made out with regard to Aciphylla, or spear-grass, whose leaves and bracts are all spinous, and constitute a most powerful means of defence. The genus is certainly found in Australia, but the spines are not developed to any extent in the Australian species, while our bayonet-leaved species are endemic. Hymenanthera, with excessively rigid branches, and Eryngium, with spinous leaves and bracts, are both genera which range into Australia, in the latter case the species being identical. The same remark applies to many of our harsh cutting-grasses or sedges, belonging to the genera Cladium, Gahnia, Lepidosperma, Carex, etc., all being genera having wide distribution outside of New Zealand, and some having identical species in Australia. Again we have apparent anomalies in Dracophyllum, with its pungent-tipped leaves (a character common, however, to the Australian species), and in Desmoschænus, the common, large, scabrid sedge of our sand-hills. Very few species have the fruit protected against grazing animals. The only cases I know of are Sicyos angulatus, of which the nut is covered with barbed spines, but which is a species common to Australia and parts of America; and Entelea arborescens, with a spinous capsule. This last plant is probably descended, after much modification, from a stray immigrant of a remote period, its nearest ally being Sparmannia, a Cape of Good Hope genus.

Even the following facts, slight and almost unappreciable as they are, tend to show that the absenee of grazing animals tends to modify species to a considerable extent. We have in New Zealand two species of manuka (Leptospermum); of these, L. scoparium, with pungent tips to its leaves, also occurs in Australia; L. ericoides, which wants the prickly tip, is endemic. Similarly there are two species of Leucopogon, of which L. frazeri, with a short spine or mucro at the apex of the leaf, occurs in Australia, and L. fasciculatus, with smooth leaves, is endemic. Lastly there are five heaths of the genus Archeria; of these, two occur in New Zealand and one in Tasmania, all having obtuse leaves; the other two occur in Australia, and have very acute almost spinous leaves.

The next matter bearing on this subject to which I now request your attention is the relation of our flora to that of Australia, as pointed out by Mr. Wallace in his latest theory, which is, that New Zealand was at one time connected with the Asiatic region by way of tropical Australia, while the whole of eastern Australia was an island separate from what is now Western Australia by a comparatively shallow sea. This, he affirms, is proven by the depth of the now intervening seas, by the geological forma-

tions of all the countries concerned, by the occurrence of so many New Zealand genera and species in Eastern Australia, and the absence from New Zealand of so many characteristic Australian orders and genera. It would be out of place here to go into these points minutely, because to do so would involve a mere recapitulation of Mr. Wallace's able and conclusive arguments, and I shall therefore confine myself only to a short examination of the relations of our flora to that of Eastern and Western Australia respectively. I have to apologize if I now descend into statistics, as the subject can hardly be treated in any other manner.

New Zealand possesses altogether 310 genera of flowering plants (303 A.R.W.), of which 248 (251 A.R.W.) are found in Australia, and of this number 146 range into Western Australia. But of these, no less than 114 genera are more or less widely distributed outside the Australasian region, leaving only 31 genera, peculiar to New Zealand and Australia, which range into Western Australia. I append the names of these genera below,^* but my knowledge of the Australian flora is much too limited to enable me to say how many of them have their head-quarters in Eastern or how many in Western Australia. In this connection greater interest attaches to those species which occur in both New Zealand and Western Australia. There are altogether 215 New Zealand species (belonging to 134 genera) found in Australia, many of them being antarctic or South American forms which occur very sparingly on the mountains of Victoria and Tasmania. Of these 215 species, 106 (belonging to 79 genera) range into Western Australia, but subtracting 68 species (52 genera) which have a very wide distribution, we find that we have still 38 species of limited dispersion to consider. Of these 24^† belong to genera whose head-quarters are outside of Australia, and their spread into Western Australia is probably more recent than into New Zea-

land; 7^* belong to genera which are chiefly found in Eastern Australia, from whence the species in question have probably spread themselves east and west; and 7^† more are of genera of which I do not know the centre of dispersion.

A close examination of the whole leads strongly to the conclusions that the basis of the floras of Eastern Australia and New Zealand are somewhat identical; that both have received immigrants independently after their separation, from north and south,—Australia by reason of its northern land connections with New Guinea receiving the greatest number of tropical species, and New Zealand from its southern extension the greatest number of antarctic and American species; that the West Australian flora proved more aggressive than the Eastern, and thus overran the whole continental area, giving it its peculiarly characteristic facies; and that of the Eastern species only those having considerable powers of dispersion have succeeded in spreading themselves westwards.

In considering the geographical distribution of a flora it is usual to bring under review only the phanerogamic or flowering plants, because the spores of Cryptogams furnish them with a most remarkable power of dispersion by wind. Yet even the distribution of our ferns and other vascular Cryptogams bears its testimony in support of the theory of the origin of the flora enunciated by Mr. Wallace. Excluding the endemic species there are about 30 per cent. of remaining forms which are spread extensively over a great part of the globe, about 4 strictly American, another 30 of tropical, Asiatic, or Polynesian occurrence, and about 36 per cent. almost exclusively Australian. Of the 85 species common to New Zealand and Australia, only 15 occur also in West Australia, and these are all species of very wide and general distribution.

In bringing to a conclusion these somewhat disconnected remarks, I shall endeavour to show how they may be pieced together so as to give some idea of the present standing of the whole question. In examining such a matter, some starting point or line of demarcation must be taken, for were we to go far enough back we should have to account for the very existence of flowering plants themselves. There are those who believe that all our species have been produced by development from a few forms originally created in this region of the world, while others ignore the idea of

development altogether. Wherever flowering plants did originate, it was most probably not in New Zealand; and all the information we possess on the subject leads to the conclusion that the parent forms of our flora were introduced from other lands during a long succession of ages, and that the process is still going on.

As has been already stated, there are about 1085 species of flowering plants known to occur in these islands, and of this number about 800 are endemic, that is, confined to this region. The relative numbers given in Hooker's “Flora Novæ-Zealandiæ” are 730 and 507, but the additions during the last thirty years have chiefly been of endemic forms. These species have been developed by the peculiar conditions to which the parent forms have been subjected during long periods of isolation. What these conditions have actually been we do not know, but in the majority of cases the changes brought about have only been of specific value. Even where they amount to generic importance the affinities can in nearly every case be traced, and we can form an approximately correct opinion as to the relationships indicated.

The greatest proportion of these endemic species is of distinctly Australian origin; there are also a number showing Polynesian affinities, and many of antarctic relationship. The remarks therefore which apply to the plants common to New Zealand and the regions specified, will apply to the originals from whence our endemic species have sprung. In accounting now for the species which are common to New Zealand and other parts of the world, we may notice first, that there is no absolute need on the part of the botanist, as there is on the part of the zoologist, to assume the existence in long past ages of former land connections with countries lying round about. But we have now reason to believe that there were former land extensions, which served to widen the area of New Zealand as it existed in olden times, and to bring it into closer proximity with other countries. From the antarctic circle a constant succession of south-westerly and southerly winds and currents may have served from time to time to convey seeds, and birds carrying seeds in their crops and attached to their feet, etc.; while icebergs may have aided in carrying masses of earth, spores, and seeds of certain antarctic species of plants. The antarctic continent, of which the now existing portions are probably only fragments, had in all likelihood alternations of climate such as we know to have existed at its antipodes, and during some of its warmer epochs it would be invaded by plants from South America. These would thus become spread round the south pole, from thence to be distributed radially to the countries lying north, as the climate again altered. Not only would antarctic forms thus find their way into New Zealand, but it is by this means that South American forms were likely

introduced, and it is by this spreading north from a common centre that we must account for so many species which are found both here and in the Tasmanian and Australian alps. Why some species should become modified and others remain persistent, I do not know. Thus our Fuchsias and pepper trees are distinct from the species found in South America, though certainly derived from that region, while our tutu plants (Coriaria angustifolia and thymifolia) are identical with others found on the Andes. We cannot work out these problems with our present information, for the necessary factors are wanting.

The northern extension of New Zealand indicated by Mr. Wallace as existing formerly, would bring it into very close proximity to North-eastern Australia, which may then have been in form of a long, narrow island, running nearly north and south; and also close to extensive sub-continental areas, of which only the remains are now left in the Polynesian Islands. And not only did those forms which are common to New Zealand and Australia, and New Zealand and Polynesia, find their way thus southwards, but it was probably by this chain that the plants of European and Asiatic affinity now found in our islands were introduced. But it was only at a much later period that an upheaval took place of the comparatively shallow seas separating the eastern and western portions of Australia; and that those forms now so characteristic of Australia, and which had been long developing under the peculiar conditions of their isolation in the western portion, overran the whole continent and stamped their features so markedly on its flora. And it is to this explanation that we must look in accounting for the presence of so many plants in New Zealand and Eastern Australia which are not found at all in Western Australia. A few specially Australian plants may have at later periods found their way into this colony, as the prevalent winds here are from the west, and birds are still found which have apparently strayed across the intervening expanse of ocean, but their number must be almost inappreciable, and cannot affect the general result.

While many of the immigrants thus introduced may have transmitted their characters almost unaltered through many successive generations, so that we still rank their descendants as belonging to species yet to be found outside New Zealand, others gave rise to variations and sports, and in course of time the accumulation of these variations has amounted to specific importance, and in some cases even to generic.

I believe that some such explanation as that sought to be given here, will account for the present geographical distribution of our flora, but it will be long before we can trace the parent forms of many of our plants, and detect the alterations and variations they have undergone. A knowledge of

selected. It is scarcely necessary for me to point out to you of what great importance, principally in a newly-inhabited country, a public museum is; how many invisible influences it exercises in almost every direction; how thought, observation and research are incited by its existence; how, in a pleasant way, youth and age alike gain knowledge; and how, in one word, the intellectual and material welfare of the province have been promoted in many ways by its help. Similar thoughts were doubtless passing through the mind of Mr. William Sefton Moorhouse, Superintendent of the Province, when in December, 1860, at the request of that able statesman, I came to Christchurch to fill the post of Provincial Geologist, the first appointment of that kind made in the Colony of New Zealand. Having before my arrival in Christchurch been travelling over and examining several parts of the colony, I brought with me seven cases of specimens, mostly geological, rocks, minerals, ores and fossils, together with a herbarium. These formed the first nucleus of the Canterbury Museum, many of them being still exhibited in their proper places.

The office of the Geological Survey was then situated in the northeastern side of the Government Buildings, on the first floor, consisting of the high tower room, my office, and inner low room, in which, on long tables, the collections as they gradually increased were placed.

The specimens brought by me from my former journeys to Canterbury consisted of:—

220 rocks, minerals, ores and fossils from the Province of Auckland.
15 rocks from the Province of Taranaki.
235 rocks, minerals, ores and fossils from the Province of Nelson.
—
470 specimens in all.

From my first journeys in Canterbury to the head-waters of the Rangi-tata, the Malvern Hills, and the head-waters of the Waitaki, such large collections were brought, that already in 1863, 742 specimens of rocks, ores, and minerals, and 520 fossils, had been added to the collections belonging to the Province.

Amongst other collections, 182 specimens of New Zealand shells had already been added. In 1862, at my suggestion, the Provincial Council voted £100 for the purchase of type collections in mineralogy, lithology, palæontology, and conchology, which were obtained from the Mineralien Comptoir, in Heidelberg, Germany, under very favourable conditions. It contained 2,613 well-selected specimens, many of them of permanent value. About the same time Professor Ferdinand von Hochstetter, who throughout the whole existence of the Museum from its very beginning has been its warm friend and supporter, sent a collection of German fossils, ores and

minerals, of which some were of great rarity and beauty. On 12th August of the same year (1862) the cast of the skeleton of Palapteryx ingens arrived from Europe, which I also presented to the Museum. It was constructed and purchased from Dr. Jaeger, of Vienna, an eminent German palæontologist, from bones dug out in a cave in Nelson.

Although we possessed at that time already a small number of moa bones, mostly collected in Nelson, we were then greatly rejoiced at obtaining this cast, and we little dreamt that a few years later the Canterbury Museum would be able to boast of possessing a collection of moa skeletons unrivalled by any other museum. I also remember, when I visited about that time Mr. E. F. Gray, at Avon-head, and after much persuasion, in which I was assisted by the Rev. Canon Wilson, he gave me some leg bones of Dinornis maximus, that I felt very proud of their possession, and thought that we had obtained a real treasure.

Besides the geological specimens obtained during my journeys, a large herbarium and a number of bird-skins and invertebrates were collected, so that a fair beginning was made.

I find in looking over my notes that the first presentation to the Museum was made by Mr. C. J. Tripp, of a Nestor notabilis, in August, 1861. The next two of which I can find a record are a bird-skin (a shining cuckoo) by Mr. C. Dunnage, and a polished stone implement found under the root of a large tree in Wellington, presented by our member Mr. George Hart, then living in Wellington.

The first exchange was made with Mr. W. L. Buller, on 28th July, 1862, of a kea (Nestor notabilis), of which I had obtained a series during my journey to the Mount Cook region, for the skin of a Mantell's kiwi (Apteryx mantelli). In the session of the Provincial Council in 1863, the attempt was made to obtain a vote for the building of a museum, but without success. I then made an arrangement with the Provincial Government to give up the two rooms hitherto occupied, if the funds necessary for the fittings of a museum could be obtained. The Provincial Council voting £300 for the purpose, I vacated my offices for those formerly occupied by the Commissioner of Police.

Mr. R. L. Holmes, the Meteorological Registrar of the Province, was at that time appointed clerk to the Museum, and all my spare time was devoted to the arrangement and classification of the collections. Catalogues were prepared, and all seemed to promise a speedy opening of the Museum for daily public inspection, when the Provincial Government, being in immediate want of accommodation, requested me to give up my new offices and return to the former, and thus the opening of the Museum was unavoidably postponed. The show-cases obtained for the £300 consisted of a number of

high wall-cases for the rocks, which now stand in the gallery of the moa room on the eastern side, and four desk-cases for the minerals, in which now the coins in the statuary gallery are exhibited.

In August, 1864, I reported to the Provincial Government as to the state of the collections, which had considerably augmented. Of the additions the following were the principal:—A collection of 60 specimens of rocks and fossils from the Chatham Islands, obtained by Mr. H. Travers, and presented by his father (Mr. W. T. L. Travers). Forty-five specimens of rocks, ores, and minerals from the Dun Mountain, all well selected; presented by Mr. T. Hacket, of Nelson. Fifty specimens of rocks and minerals received from Mr. J. C. Crawford, at the time occupied with a geological survey of Wellington, for examination and classification. Forty specimens of rocks and minerals collected by myself in the province of Otago; and 225 specimens of rocks and minerals from this province, collected during my journeys of 1863–64. This series contained 33 specimens of building stones, either from quarries already opened, or to which I wished to draw the attention of the public, as well as 180 Canterbury fossils, so that the whole geological series of New Zealand rocks consisted already of nearly 1700 specimens. Some 40 specimens of New Zealand shells had also been added to the collection.

The donations to the Museum began now to come in more freely, and I may be allowed to give here a list of those ladies and gentlemen to whom the Museum at its commencement became much indebted. Mr. F. T. Adams presented a collection of foreign shells. The late J. Cookson and Dr. Earl gave moa bones. Bird-skins were presented by the late Dr. Barker, who from the very beginning of the Museum showed himself a warm co-operator, and when afterwards officially connected with the institution, continued to the end of his life to take an active interest in its progress. Messrs. W. S. Raine, W. T. Travers, J. D. Enys, Hammett, and Master Barker, presented also bird-skins and eggs. We also received donations from Mrs. A. Louis, a collection of Australian Coleoptera from Mrs. T. Cass, and Mr. D. T. Triphook tertiary fossils, and from Mr. T. Kent native timber in polished pieces, whilst Mr. R. Fereday deposited his magnificent collection of British Lepidoptera, which lately he has generously presented to the Museum. In the year 1864 we received in exchange for a New Zealand herbarium 1086 specimens of European and North American plants from the Rev. J. Butler, of Langar, near Nottingham, and 460 specimens of Australian plants from Dr. Ferd. Müller, in Melbourne.

At the end of 1863 I wrote to the late Professor Louis Agassiz, whom I had known in Europe before he finally settled in the United States of North America, offering him to make exchanges with his museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in May, 1864, he announced to me that a large collec-

tion of Echinodermata, both recent and fossil, had been forwarded, and it arrived in the latter part of that year. We also received a little later, for a small collection of New Zealand bird-skins, a fine series of European skins from the late George von Frauenfeld, the Director of the Imperial Zoological Museum, Vienna.

Thus, whilst accumulating material from New Zealand and abroad, I continued with the work of the geological survey in my old office, where the walls were lined with cases, receiving here many visitors, who took an interest in the collection hitherto brought together, or who wanted information of various kinds. In August, 1864, when the first account of the contents of the Museum was rendered to the Provincial Government, 5,860 specimens had already been catalogued.

In the Intercolonial Exhibition of Otago, in the beginning of 1865, the Canterbury Museum exhibited a large number of specimens both geological and botanical, together with the geological section of the railway tunnel between Lyttelton and Christchurch, as far as the work of construction had advanced at that time. This section was illustrated by a number of rock specimens; this being the first instance that a tunnel was made through the wall of an ancient crater, great interest was manifested by the scientific visitors of that first New Zealand Exhibition. During my stay in Dunedin, I made some excursions to the Otago goldfields, and brought a series of specimens back with me, which still illustrate the rich localities where the first rushes took place. During a journey, lasting about six months, in the newly discovered goldfields in Westland, which was then a part of Canterbury, I also collected in every direction, and besides a large series of geological specimens, brought back with me a number of bird-skins and plants. At my suggestion, the Provincial Government at the same time gave instructions to Mr. George Sale, their Commissioner at Hokitika, to purchase samples of gold from the several principal claims, and to obtain with them the wash-dirts from which the gold was derived, so as to have a record of the rich ground then worked by a large number of miners, who had flocked there from all parts of New Zealand and Australia. Having now obtained a considerable quantity of New Zealand bird-skins, I looked out for a taxidermist, whom I might entrust with setting them up. The late Mr. F. Fuller having offered his services, I procured, not without some trouble, a grant of £25 from the Provincial Government on 3rd August, 1865, to make a beginning. Fuller went to work with true enthusiasm, so that by December 25th he had already set up 130 specimens, and as a further sum was granted to me, and the Philosophical Institute gave some help, I could also send him out collecting, so that, at the same date, already 80 duplicates were available for exchange.

In the beginning of January, 1866, I went to the north-eastern portion of the province, when Fuller came with me, and from which we brought a further number of skins and skeletons of New Zealand birds with us on our return, and those new to our collection were now mounted. From the rest 78 specimens were selected and sent about the middle of April to Professor L. Agassiz, in Cambridge, Mass., as a return. I note this as being the first large collection sent out by the Canterbury Museum.

About this time a further sum of £100 was granted for show-cases, which enabled me to have all three sides of the large room lined with them, so that the mounted birds could be placed to advantage, and, moreover, be protected from dust and insects. I find in the notes of the presentations in 1865 the following ladies and gentlemen:—Mr. George Sale, then Government Commissioner in Hokitika; Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Cox, Orari; Mr. John Rochfort, Major Scott, Messrs Luxmore, C. J. Tripp, and J. D. Enys, as having presented New Zealand bird-skins and eggs. In 1866 the number of donors reached already 30, so that the space of time at my command precludes me from giving a complete list.

Leaving Mr. R. L. Holmes, the meteorological officer, in charge of the collections, I started in the beginning of March for the sources of the Rakaia in company with the taxidermist, Fuller, who now received a salary from the Provincial Government. After an absence of nearly seven weeks we returned to Christchurch, bringing with us, besides large collections of rocks, minerals, and fossils, an extensive herbarium and about 160 bird-skins, many of which were new to our Museum collection.

After my return, and with the assistance of several friends, of whom many still at the present time take great interest in the progress of that public institution, new efforts were made that a Museum should be built. The result of our endeavours consisted in the promise of some members of the Provincial Executive, that a sum of money would be placed upon the estimates of the coming session; however, before the same took place it was evident that such a step would not lead to any success, and the matter was again postponed for another year.

In the winter of 1866, two collections of bird-skins and some other specimens of natural history were sent to the Australian Museum in Sydney, of which the late Gerhard Krefft was at that time curator, and another was forwarded to the Zoological Museum at Vienna. A return collection of the former arrived at the end of September of the same year, and gave additional work to the taxidermist, who, with great zeal and energy, devoted his whole time to the work, accumulating day by day. Of other large presentations worth mentioning here, the Museum received about the same time a fine and extensive collection of rocks of the central part of Otago

from Mr. T. Hacket, a series of bird-skins from the Northern Island from Mr. W. L. Buller, and a collection of fossils from Mr. J. D. Enys. About the same time a large collection of botanical specimens, consisting of fibres, barks, fruits, cones, seeds and timber arrived. They were sent by Dr. (now Sir) Jos. D. Hooker, the Director of the Royal Gardens at Kew. Dr. J. Hector, the Director of the Colonial Museum in Wellington, presented also a number of valuable specimens, amongst them the first pair of huias (Heteralocha gouldi).

Hitherto, the principal material for exchanges upon which we could rely were New Zealand bird-skins; however, in the beginning of December (1866) a new era for the Museum began, and to which, after that time, its rapid growth has principally to be attributed. At the invitation of Mr. G. H. Moore, then the New Zealand partner of Messrs. Kermode and Co., Ipror ceeded to their fine property, Glenmark, where, during the drainage of some swampy ground, large quantities of moa bones had been discovered. That gentleman, on my arrival, not only presented most generously the large and unique collection on hand to the Museum, but, in order that I might judge for myself of the mode of occurrence, he placed several workmen at my disposal, with whom, for a number of days, I made some very successful excavations, the results of which surpassed my highest expectations. The generous gift of Mr. Moore, and the bones excavated under my direction, filled a large American four-horse waggon. From this material the first seven moa skeletons in the Museum were articulated. About the same time a large collection of skins of North American mammals arrived from Pror fessor L. Agassiz, so that we now had also some representative specimens from the American Continent.

The collections at the end of 1866 had become so extensive, that it was utterly impossible to find space for them in the rooms occupied by me as offices. The Provincial Government, therefore, at my earnest request, put at my disposal the small cottage on the eastern side of Kilmore Street, close to the Government Buildings, afterwards occupied by the Emigration and Charitable Aid offices. Here in one room I had my office, the rest of the building being used as a storeroom. I succeeded, also, in having the fine room above Bellamy's-the so-called coffee-room, afterwards used as the Superintendent's office-set apart for Museum purposes. It was here that the first seven moa skeletons were articulated. The small room with the fine bow window, adjoining the coffee-room, was made the work-room of the taxidermist.

We had now fairly invaded the Government buildings, and could expect that this further step in enlarging the opportunity of examining the public collections would lead to the final success of having a separate Museum

building erected. The Provincial Government of the day, of which Mr. F. Stewart was Provincial Secretary and President of the Executive, proposed in the session of that year a vote of £2,500 for the erection of a Museum building. A plan was provisionally prepared by Mr. W. B. Mountfort, and, as many of the opposition members had now seen that there was ample material for exhibition, the seven moa skeletons already articulated being the principal objects, their antagonism seemed to have at last been overcome. But alas ! our hopes were again dashed to the ground, the proposed vote having been negatived on July 4, 1867. However, during the same session, on July 16, £200 were voted for further show-cases, and our hopes were again renewed that in another year, when the rooms now at our disposal might be full to overflowing, the members of the opposition who did not wish to divert any public money from roads and bridges and other purely utilitarian objects would relent at last.

So we went on working with renewed hope, the more so as further excavations in Glenmark under my directions, in August of the same year, were again very successful, so that our stock of moa bones became larger still. Some more skeletons were now articulated, and a series of others, more or less complete, were prepared for exchange with foreign countries. In September two large collections were shipped to the Australian Museum in Sydney, and to the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, United States of North America, and a month afterwards the former Museum sent fine and valuable return collections, consisting of skins, and some mounted specimens of Australian mammals, birds, and reptiles, together with others in spirits of wine, so that we became then possessed of a fair representation of the Australian fauna.

At last, on December 3rd of the same year, the Museum could be opened to the public. The principal room as before stated was situated above Bellamy's. At its southern end the seven moa skeletons were placed, whilst in three high cases along the western and northern walls, the collection of stuffed birds and mammals, the former mostly belonging to New Zealand, were exhibited. On the eastern side of the room in desk-cases, unmounted skins and other smaller objects were shown. The tower-room in the north-eastern corner of the building contained the geological collections, both from New Zealand and foreign countries. In the bow-window stood the large desk-case containing the interesting and valuable specimens from the New Zealand goldfields. The more westerly room was filled with table cases, in which the collection of fossils, minerals, ores, recent shells, and Echinodermata, both New Zealand and foreign, had been placed. The number of specimens all properly labelled amounted to 7,886, of which 4,312 were collected by me during the progress of the geological survey, 3,575 specimens having been obtained from foreign countries.

Thus one great object, the opening of the collections for inspection, was gained, and the eager interest the public took in the Museum, although a guide was almost necessary to lead the visitors from one part to the other, gave us new encouragement to proceed with our endeavours to have a separate building erected, worthy of the position Canterbury gradually assumed amongst the provinces of New Zealand.

During the first four months of the year 1868 I was again in the field, of which six weeks were devoted to the southern portion of Westland, whence I returned with considerable collections, both geological and zoological.

Another journey to Glenmark was made in the end of April, 1868, and large quantities of moa bones exhumed, of which a number, formed a welcome addition to our own collections, the rest proving of great value for further exchanges. About this time we received a fine collection of recent molluscs, mostly from the tropics, an articulated human skeleton, and a number of bird-skins, principally African, from the Vienna Zoological Museum, as well as an extensive series of European pre-historie remains, from the late John W. Flower, of Croydon, Surrey, to whom we had sent some Dinornithic remains previously. It was this fine collection by which our pre-historic series was fairly begun. I cannot help noticing here that four of our first correspondents or friends with whom I initiated exchanges, have already departed from this earth, although only a comparatively short period of time has elapsed. Whilst Agassiz, as a great naturalist, stood in an exceptionally prominent position amongst his fellow-labourers, Frauenfeld, Krefft, and Flower were all three remarkable and distinguished men in their own sphere of research.

On 30th June, 1868, my contract as Provincial Geologist having terminated, I handed the whole collections over to the Provincial Government. Mr. R. L. Holmes, who since 1862 had first been my companion on several of my journeys, and afterwards had acted as Meteorological Observer to the province, and as Clerk to the Geological Survey, left also on the same day. His departure was much regretted by me, as this gentleman, possessing great zeal and energy, had been of considerable assistance to me in arranging the collections, and although now settled a number of years in the Fijis as a planter, he still continues to take a lively interest in the welfare of the Museum, and sends, as opportunities offer, valuable contributions from those interesting islands.

No provision having been made for the proper custody of the Museum, and being anxious that the collection, which I had had so much trouble in bringing together, should be cared for, I offered my gratuitous services as Honorary Director until the meeting of the Provincial Council, when final

arrangements might be made for the purpose-an offer which was accepted by the Provincial Government. A new Executive had in the meantime taken the reins of the Government, of which Mr. W. Montgomery was the head of the Executive, and Mr. E. Jollie, Provincial Secretary, who consented to try again if they could not obtain a vote for the erection of a proper museum. The Provincial Council having the year previous refused a vote of £2,500 for a substantial building in stone, only the sum of £800 was placed on the estimates for a wooden building.

That portion of the Provincial Council which looked upon museums, libraries, and similar institutions as luxuries, in which the Province could only indulge after more than ample provision had been made for roads and bridges, demurred again, this time on the ground that the collections belonging to the Province were now too valuable to be placed in a building of such dangerous character, so the Executive seeing its way to carry the object in view, at once raised the proposed vote to £1,200, promising at the same time to erect a stone building, and carried the vote rather unexpectedly in that form. And thus the accomplishment of such a desirable object, towards which a great deal of energy had been expended, was at last brought to a favourable termination. A further sum of £150 was voted for show-cases, and during the same session I was appointed Director of the Museum.

If there had been a proper bridge leading into the park near Christ's College, a piece of ground in the park would have been set aside for museum purposes, but as it did not exist the only other desirable position available was in the Public Domain. One or two members of the Domain Board, of whom Mr. C. C. Bowen was principal spokesman, thought that the Museum should not only be erected in the centre of the grass-plot near the chief entrance of the garden, but that a plan for a more extensive museum building should at once be adopted, of which a small portion could be built with the amount voted, and as new grants of money were obtained, further buildings would be added. Mr. E. Jollie, however, whose opinion was shared by other members of the Domain Board, knowing, from his own experience, with what trouble the vote for the building had been carried, firmly believed that, at least for a considerable time to come, no more money for further additions could be obtained. He therefore decided that the building should be erected on a small triangular piece of grass-land in the north-eastern corner of the domain, and that the small path leading to the nurseries should not be disturbed. Of course this path had afterwards to be removed, and, consequently, such a small matter decided, as it were, the position of the present pile of buildings. Having been instructed that, as there would be very little chance to obtain further grants, I should make the building as

large as possible, I appealed, by circular and through the newspapers-the proprietors of which have always lent me a willing hand-to the inhabitants of the Province, and in a few months I raised the sum of £483 11s. The list of subscriptions was headed by our fellow-citizen, Mr. George Gould, with £30, and was the first of the naany valuable gifts with which this largehearted man, always willing and ready to render assistance at every opportunity when help is required, enriched the Canterbury Museum. We had therefore a sum of £683 11s. at our disposal, and as the Provincial Government gave also the stone wanted for the building, we were enabled to erect a room 70 feet long and 35 feet broad, with a gallery running round the walls, thus giving additional space, and a lean-to 35 feet long and 12 feet broad for an office and a work-room. The building-was begun in March of 1869, and handed over by the contractor at the end of the same year.

Like a number of observing men, I had long ago come to the conclusion that the days of Provincialism would soon be numbered, and that Centralization would supersede the former system. The Superintendents, Members of Executives, and Provincial Councils in the General Assembly, formed such a powerful party that any Ministry, even with the most Provincial tendencies, found it impossible to steer the General Government barque without suffering constantly from the influence of Provincial cross seas. At the same time it became evident that at the rate the waste lands were being sold, such an easy source of revenue would some day come to an end, and-that then those institutions which were more or less regarded as a luxury would suffer most seriously, the more so if central institutions of the same character had to be maintained at the public cost.

Consequently, at the end of February, 1869, I handed another memorandum to the Provincial Secretary, in which the cause of the Museum in connection with technical science and education was pleaded, urging upon the Government to make reserves for the purpose in good time. However, the proposal of the Provincial Government in that direction, made to the Council in May of the same year, did not lead to any result, although only an endowment of 5,000 acres of agricultural land was asked for. Nevertheless we did not lose all hope, and the Philosophical Institute, together with other friends of science, continued to move in that, direction, tillat last-thanks to the enlightened policy of the Executive, of which Mr. Walter Kennaway was the head, and Mr. W.P. Cowlishaw the Provincial Solicitor-the necessary reserves of waste lands were made for that purpose in the session of 1872.

The first step towards this desirable object was, however, made on the 24th November, during the meeting of the Provincial Council in 1870, during which Mr. W. Kennaway succeeded Mr. E. Jollie as Provincial

Secretary, when the Canterbury Museum was placed under trustees, of whom the following six gentlemen were appointed life-members:—Messrs. Thomas Henry Potts, Alfred Charles Barker, Julius Haast, Charles Fraser, Henry Richard Webb, and John Davies Enys. Previously Mr. J. D. Enys had proposed, as member of the Provincial Council, that reserves of 10,000 acres should be made for Museum purposes, but his motion was thrown out by 18 against 4.

During the year 1869, and before the Museum was opened to the public, large and valuable additions arrived from various sources, of which those from Dr. Otto Finsch, Director of the Bremen Museum, and the late Professor A. Kaup, Director of the Darmstadt Museum, were the most extensive and interesting. We lost, however, a number of valuable exchanges sent in the Matoaka, in February of the same year, by the foundering of that illfated ship.

The discovery of a moa-hunter encampment at the mouth of the Rakaia, visited twice during the same year, on the property of Mr. T. Cannon, to whose generosity we are greatly indebted, and renewed excavations in Glen-mark, furnished again valuable additions and material for exchanges. The new Museum building being ready for use in the beginning of 1870, it was thought desirable before it was occupied by the public collections that an Art Exhibition should be held in it. This first exhibition was opened on 8th February, and was a great success, proving full of attraction to the public. It was kept open to 7th April. On 15th April the first new show cases were delivered, and the work of arranging the collection went on now without interruption.

During the year 1870, before the opening of the Museum building, a number of valuable additions arrived from Vienna, Darmstadt, Munich, Stockholm, Calcutta, Cambridge (United States), and London, the system of exchange, consisting principally of moa bones, having now been well established by me. The visitors showed great appreciation of our endeavours to possess collections worthy of the Province. In the year 1867, 32 persons made donations; in 1868 the number reached 59, which diminished in 1869 to 47, rising again in 1870 up to 6th October, to 72. It would be invidious to particularize, but I might be allowed to mention here a few gentlemen, who from the very beginning took great interest in the welfare of the Museum, to whom I have not yet alluded, and who have by repeated valuable gifts enriched our collections,—Messrs. T. H. Potts, E. P. Sealy, J. D. Enys, B. W. Mountfort, Hon. John Hall, Hon. William Rolleston, and H. Meinertzhagen.

On 1st October, 1870, the Museum was at last opened to the public by Mr. W. Rolleston, the Superintendent of the Province. At the time of the

opening it contained 25,353 specimens, of which 16,055 were exhibited, thus leaving 9,298 specimens in the store-room. Amongst them were 85 skins of quadrupeds and 733 skins of birds. These 25,353 specimens consisted of 7,134 specimens of geology and palæontology, 11,218 specimens of zoology, the rest being botanical and ethnological.

With the opening of the first building, now hidden by the first addition in 1872, I wish to bring my address to a close. That part contains now, on the ground floor, moa skeletons and other zoological collections, and the gallery is devoted to the geological and mineralogical series. This building ought always to be looked upon by our successors with a feeling akin to reverence, and as a proof of the enlightened policy of their forefathers, who fought many a battle before its erection could be accomplished.

Having offered you a short history of the origin and early progress of the Canterbury Museum, you will perhaps allow me to allude, I must confess rather diffidently, to an accusation frequently brought against me, that I was, when there was an opportunity, too greedy to obtain specimens for the Museum. In self-defence, I may appeal to the members present, who, I am sure, will acquit me of the charge, that I bored them inopportunely to obtain what they wished to keep. On the contrary, I have lived long enough to know that there is a great charm in giving, and that this pleasurable feeling is enhanced when one is a little pressed to do so, thus making the enjoyment of the donor still greater, as it shows him that the presentation is valued. However, there may be a few exceptions to the rule, and wishing to unburden at once my conscience in this repect, you will perhaps allow me to close my address with the narration of one incident in the pursuit of my vocation bearing upon, this point.

Having been informed that a large whale had been stranded a few miles south of the mouth of the Rakaia, I proceeded with an assistant to secure, if possible, the skeleton, and to gain other information. Taking a vehicle at the South Rakaia township, we reached the locality after some mishaps, the principal one of which was that the horses broke the pole, got clear of the harness, and ran away. However, a farmer in the neighbourhood was kind enough to drive us to the spot, where I found the carcass of a large sperm whale had been stranded. In examining it we observed that seven of the large front teeth in the lower jaw had been knocked out and carried away by previous visitors; and as I had not time to stay till the skeleton could be cut out, I returned to the Rakaia township the same evening, after having ascertained where the despoilers of the whale's mouth lived. So on my way back I visited these settlers, and with little trouble got four of the teeth back before reaching the Rakaia township. Here two more were returned to me, but the seventh was in the hands of a tradesman whom I