Neiv Zealand Institute. 683 



The average size of the annual volume of Transactions and 

 Proceedings is 640 pages and about forty plates. 



The funds afc the disposal of the Board of Governors of the 

 Institute have consisted only of the annual parliamentary grant 

 of £500, an annual contribution from the Wellington Philo- 

 sophical Society as an equivalent for rent of the library-room and 

 the use of the lecture-hall, and a small sum arising from the 

 sale of volumes. Nearly the whole of the funds are spent in 

 the printing of the volume of Transactions, only a very small 

 amount being devoted to the maintenance of the Library in 

 the way of binding books. Nor is the information contained 

 in these volumes confined to the colony, as they are widely 

 distributed to the chief libraries in all parks of the world. 



Forty-seven of the most distinguished men in science and 

 literature, who have rendered special service to New Zealand, 

 have been elected honorary members, while there are seventy- 

 five corresponding societies and institutions that exchange 

 their publications with the Institute. About three hundred 

 volumes per annum are acquired in this manner, the greater 

 number of which have been placed in the General Assembly 

 Library. 



The Museum in Wellington, though nominally under the 

 charge of the Governors of the Institute, does not constitute 

 a charge on their funds, but is wholly supported out of the 

 votes for the Geological Survey Department. The labour of 

 editing the annual volumes and the preparation of the illus- 

 trations is undertaken by the staff of the Geological Survey, 

 in addition to their other duties, and without any further 

 remuneration ; and it is chiefly owing to this circumstance 

 that a work, which actually produces in the form of subscrip- 

 tions and contributions by way of exchange of books the value 

 of over £1,700 per annum, is produced from the grant of £500 

 a year. 



Besides the fosteriug of local societies the Act contem- 

 plated the establishment of technical schools throughout the 

 colony ; and at the request of the Government a scheme was 

 submitted by the Board on the 20th July, 1870, to provide a 

 normal technical school and to give practical instruction in 

 applied science at the Museum ; but no funds were provided 

 for giving effect to this scheme. The functions of the Board 

 under the Act for promoting local institutions for instruction 

 in science have therefore remained in abeyance, and have to 

 some extent been superseded by subsequent legislation and 

 endowments for mechanics' institutes, public libraries, and 

 technical schools for art, mining, agriculture, andother branches 

 of applied science under the control of the colleges and the 

 Education Boards. 



