62 Transactions. — Miscellaneotts. 



The estimated amount of rock displaced was 151,000 cubic 

 yards, equal to about 252,000 tons. 

 The cost of this blast was : — 



Dynamite ... ... ... ... £500 



Mining and tamping ... ... ... 140 



£640 

 Each cubic yard displaced, therefore, cost a little over Id., 

 equal to each ton at -6 of a penny. 



The effective work of the dynamite amounted to lifting over 

 140,000 times its own weight, and did proportionately twelve 

 times the work that the powder did. 



The shock of this blast did not appear to be so much felt as 

 the other ; and in many places it was not noticeable, where the 

 shock of the powder blast had been felt. 



Art. LXXI. — The Anjo-Semitic Maori. 



By A. S. Atkinson. 



{Read before the Nelson Philosophical SocieUj, 1st November, 1886.] 



In the last volume of the " Transactions of the N.Z. Institute," 

 vol. xviii., there is a paper by Mr. E. Tregear, entitled "The 

 Maori in Asia."' On reading it, I found it referred to and might 

 be called a continuation of a previous work, by the same author, 

 called " The Aryan Maori.'"'' The latter I had not then seen, 

 but at once procured and read it ; and it would be saying little 

 to say that I found both full of interest and novelty : indeed, to 

 me, but very little used to philological inquiries, Mr. Tregear's 

 methods and his results were alike startling.! 



His main thesis is : that the Maori race is of the same 

 family stock as the Indo-European, or Aryan, races; that the 

 Maori language is a more ancient form of the common language 

 Bpoken before their dispersion by the common progenitors of all 

 these races ; and that the main proof of this lies — I was going to 

 Bay embedded in, but really, on the very surface of, the Maori 

 language itself, and is educible upon a comparison of the Maori 

 vocabulary with the vocabularies of those languages hitherto 

 exclusively called Aryan. 



• " The Aryan Maori," by E. Tregear (Wellington, N.Z., 1885). 



t It is proper, though to those of you wlio know nie quite unnecessary, 

 to say, in the beginning, that I liave not the least claim to be called a Maori 

 scholar ; the utmost I can claim is that I have been a student of the 

 language, as opportunity offered, for a long time ; though for how long, 

 looking at result?. I would rulher not say. 



