Presidential Address. xxvii 



and placing the theory of this prime mover upon a sound basis. The 

 general adoption of steam-power necessitated a great increase in the number 

 of skilled mechanics, and thus facilitated the production of all kinds of 

 scientific instruments. In 1798 William Murdoch erected the first gas- 

 works ; by the end of the next century the capital invested in gas under- 

 takings in the United Kingdom represented a sum of more than £100,000,000. 



Of the achievements of science during the nineteenth century I shall 

 say little — the subject is too vast to allow of any survey to-night. 

 I would, however, point out that whereas at the beginning of the period 

 there were no schools or universities in Great Britain at which provision 

 was made for the practical study of the sciences, there are now but few 

 secondary schools in the Empire at which experimental science in some 

 form is not taught. The University of Cambridge introduced an honours 

 examination in the sciences in 1851, and there were nine successful candi- 

 dates, of whom one, my old master, Professor Liveing, is still a distinguished 

 member of the University. In 1900 there were 136 successful candidates 

 for this examination, and at the present day the " Natural Sciences Tripos " 

 is the largest of the Cambridge honours schools. 



Before any experimental research is commenced, a careful study and 

 verification should be made of the statements due to earlier investigators. 

 First of all the latest text-books are consulted — and I regret to say that 

 generally they do not give much help. Then a systematic research is made 

 amongst the original papers published in the scientific journals throughout 

 the world. The neglect of this study and checking of the work of previous 

 authors has caused much delay in the progress of science, and has led to 

 much waste of time in work upon problems which had already been 

 elucidated. I would remind you that the fundamental law of chemical 

 action discovered by the Norwegian investigators Guldberg and Waage 

 was overlooked for more than twenty years ; Mendel's discoveries with 

 regard to heredity remained unknown for thirty-five years ; whilst Caven- 

 dish's experiment indicating the presence in the atmosphere of the inert 

 gases now known as the Argon group was unnoticed or forgotten for more 

 than a century. 



Investigators are therefore greatly handicapped if unable to consult a 

 well-equipped and properly catalogued library containing complete sets of 

 the most important British and foreign scientific journals. There is at 

 present no efficient library of this type in New Zealand, and one of our 

 greatest needs is the provision of such a central library, specially arranged 

 for convenience of consultation, and from which, under suitable safeguards, 

 books could be posted to investigators in other parts of New Zealand. The 

 difficulty of equipping such a library will obviously increase year by year, 

 since the demand for the back numbers of scientific journals increases 

 annually, and every new American and European university endeavours to 

 secure an efficient reference library. 



To the workers in the biological sciences good museums are also essential, 

 and I must add my protest to that of former Presidents of this Institute 

 who have pointed out the negligence — in my opinion, criminal negligence — - 

 of successive Governments in not providing suitable accommodation for 

 the irreplaceable collections at present buried in the ancient and inadequate 

 wooden buildings of the Dominion Museum in Wellington. 



Research consists essentially of the collection of facts, the arranging of 

 these in order, and the arriving at deductions from the statistics thus 

 collected and arranged. It is true that in one science the actual methods 

 adopted may be — in fact, must be — very different from those employed in 

 some other science. Thus in zoology the facts are arrived at by such 



