Presidential Address. 103 



or the conduct of their business passed during the year shoukl be broxight forward at the 

 annual meeting, and those that are considered to be ecjuivalent to the regulations already 

 printed should be printed separately, under the head of new regulations, in the Pi-o- 

 ceed.ings, after the existing regulations, and year by year included in the Transactions 

 to be laid upon the table of both Houses of Parliament in the usual way. It is true 

 that many of them that are held equivalent to regulations, are duly set forth in various 

 parts of the Pi'oceedings, but together with these are resolutions gi-anting exchanges of 

 publications, resolution that a certain society be placed on the list of exchanges, and 

 other matters of ephemeral interest. 



YoTi will have before you the report of the Hector Memorial Fund, and I trust that 

 you wll be able to co-operate with other committees for the future administration and 

 investment of the fund. When this is done it would, I think, be desirable to print 

 in a special form the regulations under the Hutton ]\Iemorial Research Fund and the 

 similar conditions for the Hector Memorial Fund, for the benefit of students and others 

 who may apply to the Board of Governors for grants. With regard to the Hutton Fund, 

 as you are aware, the three gentlemen asked to act in awarding the Hutton jSlemorial 

 Sledal have consented to do so, but I cannot find that there is any provision as to when 

 the first award is to be made. It is provided by the first regulation that it shall not be 

 awarded more than once in tlu'ee years ; and then, apparently, the Board of Governors 

 may not accept the award of the committee unless they are unanimously of the opinion 

 that the contribution for which the medal is awarded is really deserving of the honour. 

 Therefore, I should imagine it will be necessary for the Board of Governors to inform the 

 committee when they wish the first award to be made. I do not notice in the Transac- 

 tions for 1908 the regulations of the Hutton Memorial Medal and Research Fund, but 

 Resolution 8 provides that they should be published annually in the "Transactions of 

 the New Zealand Institute." 



Under the old Act the Geological Survey of this coimtry was very closely connected 

 with the New Zealand Institute, and naturally all the older members of the Institute 

 are deeply interested in the progress of geological work in the Dominion. We therefore 

 look with great interest on the series of bulletins being issued by the Mines Department, 

 which record the work of the Director and officers of the new Survey. In connection 

 with this matter, I feel sure that the members of the Institute will agree with me in 

 sending our good wishes to Mr. A. McKay, the veteran geologist of the old Survey, who 

 has recently retired from the Government service after long and arduous labour in the 

 field. The enormous collections of the old Survey have been under revision, and are 

 now in a condition in which they may be brought together for examination and description 

 by experts. This long-delayed work is urgently needed, and the necessity for action in 

 this matter was recognised by the Australasian Association for the Advancement of 

 Science at its meeting in Dunedin. I have recently wi'itten a paper setting forth the 

 present position of New Zealand palieontology. and I believe it will shortly appear in. 

 the Transactions. When copies of the paper are available. I intend to submit it to all 

 those interested in the matter, and then we may be able to again press the claims of the 

 subject on the proper authorities. 



There is one more subject on which I feel I should say a few words, and it is a subject 

 in which I am more particidarly interested — the exploration of the islands of the South 

 Pacific, and the study of their ethnology. It is not the first time, by any means, in which 

 the desirability of making a properly organized attack u])on the subject has been brought 

 forward, and although many expeditions have been planned, and although manj' enthusi- 

 astic collectors and explorers have been at work, there is still roora for work in all 

 branches of the subject. There was a time when I hoped that it might have been 

 attempted by New Zealand scientists. This was at the time when practically the whole 

 of the Polynesian islands of the South Pacific might have been brought under the control 

 of New Zealand. Since then, however, things have altered, and many opportunities 

 have been lost. If, as is shown by the publications recently issued by the Philosophical 

 Institute of Canterbury, there is much interesting natural history and physical geography 

 of the southern islands, there is evidently a much more interesting series of volumes to 

 be wTitten on the Natives and natural history and geology of oxir northern islands — 

 that is, those groups which have been of recent years definitely included in the area of 

 the Dominion of New Zealand. It is true that this requires the M'ork of experienced 

 linguists and ethnologists in addition to those experienced in natural science, but we 

 shoukl have no difficulty in finding several members of the Institute well qualified to 

 undertake the task. 



Whilst thus pointing out a special field of research lying almost at our doors, it may 

 not be inopportune to (-all attention to .suggestions that have been made as to the recog- 

 nition by our New Zealand University of the claims that Polynesian })hilology and 

 ethnology have to be included in the teaching offered by the University ^Colleges. 



