46 Transactions. 



had seen the helmet, with the hole through it on the forehead, but he did 

 not know from whence the armour came. Now you will understand. 



" Now, my urgent desire is that this property shall be permanently 

 left in the Whare-Ruanuku (Museum). It was I that directed the searcb 

 for it in 1895, and Hori Pukehika and I found it concealed in a place, that 

 had been lost " [i.e., the recollection of it]. " Last year Hori Pukehika 

 and Dr. Pomare brought it away. Pukehika has only just returned " 

 [? from here]. "I have sent a communication to Mr, Hamilton, but not so 

 lengthy as this. Will you send him the enclosed copy ? I have also sent to 

 Hakiaha Tawhiao in case he should feel dark " [anxious] " on account of 

 that property. Hence do I say that this property of Whanganui should 

 be left in the Museum for ever. 



'' Enough. May you live, the only old man left of those other old who 

 have departed to the night, Major Keepa, Mete Kingi, Hori Kingi, and 

 many others. " Yom' fi'iend, 



" W. HiPANGO." 



Art. VIII.- — The Present Position of New Zealand Paloeontology ; with a 

 List of Papers on the Palreontology of New Zealand, including the Titles 

 of those Stratigraphical Papers containing Important Lists of Fossils. 



By A. Hamilton. 



[Bead before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 6th October, 1909.] 



Geological explorations in New Zealand have been in progress now for 

 seventy years, and a mass of reports and papers is in existence bearing 

 witness to the work done by solitary pioneers, and later by — 



The Provincial Surveys of Canterbury, 1860, under Haast ; Otago, 

 1861, under Hector ; and Wellington, 1862, under Crawford : 



The Geological Survey established under the New Zealand Institute 

 Act of 1867 : 



The officers of the Mines Department from 1878 to date : and 



The new Geological Survey of 1905. 

 In addition to this there was the important work done by Hochstetter, 

 and by Haast and Hutton and others, as private individuals. 



The portions of this work that I wish to deal with are the collections 

 that were made by these Surveys ; and I wish to give, if possible, some idea 

 of the progress that has been made with the study of them, and more espe- 

 cially what has been done in the examination and determination of the 

 fossils.* 



* I do not propose to say anything about the collection of rocks and minerals, except 

 to state that the collection of these made by the old Survey of 1867 in the Dominion 

 Museum building exceeds 12,000 specimens ; nor do I propose to say anything about the 

 vo^k that has been done on the moa and other extinct birds. 



