NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE. 



Thirtieth Annual Report. 



Meetings of the Board were held on the 3rd September, 1897, 

 and 11th February and 8th September, 1898. 



Messrs. T. Mason, E. Tregear, and J. Young retired from 

 the Board, in compHance with clause 6 of the Act, and were 

 reappointed as Governors of the Institute. 



The following gentlemen were elected to represent the In-* 

 corporated Societies — viz., Mr. S. Percy Smith, Mr. J. McKer- 

 row, and Major- General Schaw — in accordance with clause 7 

 of the Act. 



The members now on the roll are : Honorary members, 

 '28 ; Auckland Institute, 167 ; Hawke's Bay Philosophical 

 Society, 66 ; Wellington Philosophical Society, 146 ; Philo- 

 sophical Institute, Canterbury, 77 ; Otago Institute, 103 ; 

 Nelson Philosophical Society, 20 ; Westland Institute, 57 : 

 making a total of 664. 



The New Zealand Institute has lost two active members — 

 Messrs. T. Kirk and W. M. Maskell — during the year, both of 

 whom have served on the Board of Governors, and were the 

 pre-eminent leaders for the whole colony in the special 

 branches of science to which they devoted their talents and 

 industry. 



Thomas Kirk was everywhere recognised as our fore- 

 most botanist, and it is almost an irretrievable loss to 

 science that his career should have been cut short when 

 in the midst of a great work on the botany of New Zea- 

 land. The portion of the work that was in print at the 

 time of his death covers descriptions of the Howering-plants 

 as far as the end of the natural order Compositae. This 

 is equal to rather more than half of the first volume of 

 Hooker's Handbook. These sheets, containing 363 pages, 

 have been submitted to Sir Joseph Hooker for perusal and 

 comment, and it is hoped that satisfactory arrangements will 

 be made for completing the work. In the meantime it is 

 proposed that Mr. Kirk's portion should at once be published 

 under the superintendence of his spn, Mr. H. B. Kirk, who is 

 thoroughly qualified for the task. Besides his great and 



