Annual Meeting. 491 



9. On the 4th October it was resolved to appoint Professor H. B. Kirk as repre- 

 sentative of the New Zealand Institute at the meeting of the Australasian Association 

 for the Advancement of Science to be held in Hobart in 1921. On the 29th October 

 Dr. Cotton was appointed in place of Professor Kirk, who reported that he was unable 

 to attend the meeting. 



10. On the 4th October it was resolved that it be a recommendation to the 

 annual meeting that the separate publication of the proceedings of the annual meeting 

 be discontinued. 



11. That it be a recommendation to the annual meeting to affirm the principle 

 of the Standing Committee that when refusing to recommend a grant for research no 

 reasons for doing so be given. 



Amendment of New Zealand Institute Act. — On the 29tb March the President wrote 

 to the Hon. Minister of Internal Affairs laying before him the facts of the New Zealand 

 Institute's financial position, and asking that the Government amend the New 

 Zealand Institute Act to enable £1,000 to be paid annually, instead of £500. On the 

 28th July a copy of the Bill amending this Act was received, and, it having been passed 

 and become law, the £1,000 has since been paid in to the credit of the Institute's 

 account at the Bank of New Zealand. 



Annual Reports and. Balance-sheets. — The annual reports and balance-sheets of the 

 following societies have been received, and are now laid on the table : — 



Wellington Philosophical Society, for year ending 30th September, 1920. 



Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, for year ending 31st October, 1920. 



Otago Institute, for year ending 31st December, 1920. 



Manawatu Philosophical Society, for year ending 31st October, 1920. 



Auckland Institute, for year ending 20th February, 1920. 



Nelson Institute, for year ending 31st December, 1920. 



Donation of Partial Sets of Transactions has been made to the following : — 

 Library of Hillside Railway Workshops. 



Library of United States Department of Agriculture, Washington. 

 Forestry Department, Wellington. 

 Director, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, New York. 

 Director, Volcano Observatory, Hawaii Islands. 



Fellowship of the New Zealand Institute. — A committee consisting of Dr. Thomson 

 (convener), Professor Easterfield, Professor Segar, Dr. Adams, and Mr. C. A. Ewen 

 was appointed to draw up rules for the election of Fellows of the New Zealand Institute. 

 The original recommendations of this committee did not meet with the approval of 

 the Standing Committee. Professor Sommerville was added to the committee, and 

 the following rules were subsequently agreed upon, and it is suggested that these 

 should now be gazetted as regulations for conducting future elections of Fellows : — 



1. Each voter arranges all the candidates' names in order of preference. 



2. The voter may bracket any number of names in any place. 



3. If the voter omit the names of any of the candidates from Ins list these names 

 shall be added by the returning officer, and bracketed in the last place on the voter's 

 paper. 



4. On receipt of the ballot-papers the returning officer enumerates all the prefer- 

 ences. In the case of a small electorate this may be done conveniently in the following 

 way : A schedule is prepared for each candidate on computing-paper, containing in the 

 top row the names of the candidates, or the letters representing them, and in the left 

 margin the numbers denoting the different ballot-papers. The spaces are then filled, 

 entering " 2 " for a preference as against the candidate whose name stands at the 

 top of the column, and " 1 " in the case of a bracket (Table II).* The columns are then 

 summed, and the numbers transferred to another schedule (Table III), in which the names 

 of the candidate are placed both in the top row and in the left margin. Table III 

 then gives for each pair of candidates — e.g., A and B — the number of times A is pre- 

 ferred to B and B to A, each multiplied by 2. It is most convenient to arrange the 

 table so that A's preferences are in a column. The numbers may be checked by noting 

 that A's preferences against B plus B's preferences against A are always equal to the 

 number of voters multiplied by 2. 



5. The columns in Table III are then summed. The sums are checked by summing 

 the sums, the total of which should be equal to np (pi), where p is the number of 

 candidates and n the number of voters. 



* It is more usual to enter " 1 " for a preference and " i " for a bracket, but by takiiig the numbers 

 2 and 1 the awkward fractions aie eliminated, and the final results arc the same. 



