Wellington Philosophical Society. 743 



each year receiving a fresh addition of cementiug matter. The hatch- 

 ing process of the penguin is quite a different and a more difficult 

 problem — which is, how a bird with a rigid body and hard feathers can 

 lay its egg on a round boulder and sit on top of it. The photograph 

 on the screen explained how this was done. 



Paper. — " On a New Species of Luminous Fish ( Polyipnus 

 kirkii)," by Sir J. Hector. Specimen found by Mr. H, B. 

 Kirk, M.A., and exhibited. 



Tenth Meeting : 18lh December, 1895. 



Mr. T. Kirk, F.L.S., President, in the chair. 



Papers. — 1. "On Iron from the Titaniferous Sand of New 

 Zealand," by E. Purser; communicated by Mr. T. H. Hust- 

 wick (Transactions, p. 689) ; with models of machinery used 

 in manufacture of the iron. 



Major-Geneval Schaw said that this ironsand was sometimes called 

 " magnetic," sometimes " titanic " or " titaniferous." He held tiiat the 

 term " magnetic " was a misnomer, for it meant that each grain of the iron 

 in the mixed sand was itself a permanent magnet, and tliis experiment 

 proved it was not. It had been mentioned that at Onehunga a system of 

 separating the iron particles from the other particles mixed with them 

 in the sand had been used, in which electro-magnets were employed. 

 These, when magnetized by an electric current, picked up the iron par- 

 ticles, and, when demagnetized by breaking the current, dropped the iron 

 particles. Had the iron particles been themselves magnetic they would 

 have remained attaclied to the soft iron core of the electro magnet by 

 their own magnetic attraction ; but they did not — hence they were not 

 themselves magnetic. Also, if tliey had been steel, not iron, they would 

 have been permanently magnetized by contact with the electro-magnet, 

 and would not have dropped off when the current ceased. Therefore, the 

 iron particles in the sand were simply iron, and neither magnetic nor 

 steel. Tliese iron particles were, however, in a peculiar condition : they 

 would not rust, i.e., form the red oxide, as ordinary iron does. In fact, 

 they were already saturated with oxygen, and could take no more into 

 combination. How or why they had been so combined he could not say; 

 but he had been informed that the cause was the presence of a small per- 

 centage of titanium combined with the iron in each particle. He should 

 be glad to know if this was the case or not. If it was not — if each particle 

 of iron was pure iron combined with oxygen, and the titanium and other 

 impurities were separate grains, mixed mechanically in the sand, it 

 seemed to him that the process had a very good prospect of ultimate 

 success ; but if the titanium was in greater or less proportions combined 

 with the iron also, then he feared that the difficulties would be found to 

 be much greater, as it was, he believed, possible that different samples of 

 the sand would be found to contain different percentages of combined 

 titanium in the iron particles in addition to varying proportions of mixed 

 impurities in tlie sand. If it could be established as a fact that always 

 the iron grains in the sand were pure iron combined with oxygen, the 

 prospect seemed to him most hopeful. 



Sir James Hector said tliat the question of how to reduce ironsand 

 had occupied much attention, and in many countries some of the finest 

 steel had been manufactured from it for thousands of j'ears, especially in 

 India, but by a slow process that would be too expensive with the cost of 



