TEANS ACTIONS 



OF THE 



NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE, 



1901. 



I. — MISCELLANEOUS. 



Art, I. — Presidential Address. 



By Jas. Stewart, C.E. 



[Read before the Auckland Institute, 3rd June, 1901.] 



We this night commence the thirty-fourth session of our 

 Institute, a fact which carries our existence practically over 

 one-third of a century ; and, although it might be excusable 

 to utilise this landmark as a peg on which to hang a retro- 

 spect of the past and anticipations more or less prophetic or 

 imaginative in respect to the future, I prefer to touch lightly 

 on this scope, and leave it to the occupier of this chair sixteen 

 years hence, when the jubilee of the Institute will be cele- 

 brated in, there is no room for doubt, a manner befitting the 

 occasion, and with the participation of, I hope, all of those 

 whom I now see before me. Nevertheless, I am deeply 

 sensible of the privilege I now enjoy of opening our first 

 session in the new century, and it is pleasing to be able on 

 such an occasion to congratulate the Institute on its solid 

 and prosperous condition. We are able to keep up a steady, 

 if not large, increase in all sections of the Museum, and in 

 the ethnological section especially we may claim to lead the 

 colony. Our roll of membership has taken a turn upwards, 

 with every prospect of a yearly balance on the right side, the 

 result in no small degree of the lectures, scientific and popular, 

 which for many years past have been -given, often at no small 

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