160 Transactions. — Geology. 



of a large country and publish results ; while, after the 

 general survey is made, private individuals can easily under- 

 take the local examinations, and may often be paid for doing 

 so. Consequently it is the duty of the Government to take in 

 hand an important work which cannot be done by private 

 enterprise, and this is what most Governments of civilised 

 countries have actually done. 



Now, no systematic geological survey has yet been made of 

 New Zealand— that is, there has been no close and continuous 

 examination of the rocks, starting from a few localities and * 

 gradually spreading over the whole country. Nevertheless, 

 in the intervals between the examination of mines and mining 

 districts Sir James Hector has managed to get a sketch-map 

 made of the greater part of the country, while some important 

 districts have been examined more in detail. We thus know 

 a good deal about the general geological structure of New 

 Zealand although we do not know it accurately; and, as a 

 consequence, in several cases the evidence appears to be con- 

 flicting, so that different opinions may be maintained accord- 

 ing to the observer's interpretation of the evidence. 



But while something has been done towards unravelling 

 the geological structure of New Zealand, the palaeontology 

 has been woefully neglected. Large collections of fossils 

 have been made by the survey, but they remain undescribed 

 — most of them, indeed, as yet unpacked — in the Museum at 

 Wellington, and there appears to be no chance of getting 

 them described. According to the last annual report, there 

 are more than thirty thousand specimens in the exhibition- 

 cases, by far the larger part of which are unnamed and un- 

 described ; while, in addition, there are about five hundred 

 boxes still unpacked, many of which have been stored away 

 for years. A slight attempt was made in 1873 to describe 

 the Tertiary shells and Echinoderms; but the plates which 

 were prepared to accompany the text have never been pub- 

 lished. x\lso, in 1880 a report appeared on the Neozoic 

 corals and Bryozoa, but nothing further has been done by 

 the New Zealand Government. Nearly all we know of the 

 palaeontology of New Zealand is either due to the publication 

 by the Government of Austria of the fossils collected by 

 Dr. von Hochstetter in 1859, or is the result of private 

 enterprise. The collections of the survey — made with great 

 labour and at considerable expense — are wasted by the apathy 

 of the Government, which appears not to know how great 

 would be their scientific value if described and figured, and 

 how useless they are as they now exist in the Museum at 

 Wellington. It is a great pity that this should be so, for the 

 geographical position of New Zealand gives to its geology a 

 world-wide interest. It is in New Zealand alone that we 



