Wellington Philosophical Society. 661 



Journal of the 1st August, 1894, as follows: "A most remarkable and 

 valuable calculation has been achieved by a competent, unprejudiced, 

 and distinguished investigator as to the accuracy of Major-General 

 Drayson's discovery, described in previous issues of the Journal. 

 Admiral De Horsey took the recorded positions of a star, found 

 by observation at various dates, and calculated by geometry the posi- 

 tion of the pole of second rotation, the annual movement of the pole 

 of the heavens, the position of the pole of the ecliptic, the decrease 

 in the obliquity at various dates, the period during which an entire 

 revolution of the equinoxes would occur, the amount of extension of 

 the arctic circle during this revolution, and other items of very great 

 importance. The results obtained by this original process differ only 

 Jrd of a minute of arc in two cases, and only ¥ J,yth of a second and 

 jj^th of a second in other cases, from the results given by Major- 

 General Drayson." The President observed that, so far as he was aware, 

 this was the only real criticism of Major-General Drayson's discovery 

 which had yet been made, and it was gratifying to learn that this search- 

 ing mathematical criticism so perfectly confirmed the discovery, and its 

 astronomical and geological consequences, which he had the honour of 

 bringing to the notice of the Society. 



New Member.— Mx. Percy E. Baldwin. 



Papers. — 1. "Myths of Observation," by E. Tregear, 

 F.E.G.S. (Transactions, p. 579.) 



Sir James Hector thought the paper very interesting, and deserving 

 of thoughtful consideration. At the same time we must be careful, in 

 interpreting such traditional myths, not to strain observed facts. Evi- 

 dences of former great changes wrought by ice, water, and fire are found 

 in all parts of the world ; but there is no evidence that the action of these 

 agencies was simultaneously exercised over distant areas. Even during 

 the last year we have had evidence of local deluges and local fires, local 

 volcanic outbursts, and local excesses of cold, all of which might have 

 originated myths among savages; but these would not universally apply, 

 although they might spread even among nations that had not ex- 

 perienced the phenomena that gave rise to them, nor is there any proof 

 that the similar myths referred to the same events, or to universal cata- 

 strophes. He also protested against mixing up widely-distant geological 

 epochs, such as the extension of a Cretaceous and Miocene temperate flora 

 into the arctic circle, with the Pliocene glacial extinction of the mam- 

 moth and the origin of myths in the human period, these having been 

 events separated by vast periods of time. 



Mr. Maskell said it was difficult to discuss a large question like this 

 without carefully reading the paper ; but he had very little sympathy 

 with what Mr. Tregear had said. We should think more of facts than of 

 theories. He should not like to see this paper in the Transactions, because 

 it is not original ; everybody has read it over and over again, and the de- 

 ductions have all been given in various works. Professor Sayce was 

 called by Mr. Tregear " the champion of orthodoxy," and it is unfortunate 

 that such sneering allusions should be made in a professedly scientific 

 paper. 



General Schaw said that, as Mr. Tregear had alluded to the mammoths 

 preserved in foreign mud in Siberia, as indicating a more sudden change 

 of climate than would have resulted from the second rotation of the 

 earth described in his (the President's) inaugural address, he felt called 

 upon to make some observations on the subject. It must be noted that 

 an increased obliquity of the axis of the earth's diurnal rotation to the 

 plane of the ecliptic would not only have caused an arctic winter to 

 extend further towards the equator, but also would have increased the 



