610 Proceedings. 



Eighth Meeting: 11th November, 1896. 



Mr. W. T. L. Travers, President, in the chair. 



Major-General Schaw was appointed by the Society to 

 vote in the election of Governors of the New Zealand Institute, 

 in conformity with the Act. 



The following gentlemen were nominated as honorary 

 members of the New Zealand Institute, there being two 

 vacancies on the roll : Professor Horatio Hale, of Clinton, 

 Ontario, philologist to Wilkes's expedition ; Mr. E. Meyrick, 

 B.A., of Marlborough College, Wiltshire, England, for New 

 Zealand Micro-lepidoptera. 



Papers. — 1. " Polynesian Migrations " (Chapters VI. and 

 VII., Conclusion), by Joshua Eutlaud ; communicated by E. 

 Tregear, F.R.G.S. {Ty-cmsactions , p. 37.) 



Mr. Tanner said it was strange that these double boats could live in 

 the open ocean. Why should not these natives, who in many ways were 

 so clever, have progressed more than they had done ? The carvings in 

 Easter Island were most wonderful. There must have been something 

 like priestcraft at work. 



Major-General Schaw said the native boats at Ceylon were built on 

 the same principle as those referred to ; they could sail either way, but 

 preferred the windward. They went long distances, and sailed like 

 birds. 



Mr. Travers was surprised that Mr. Rutland bad made no mention of 

 the monuments in the ancient cities of Central America, which were 

 similar to those in Egypt. He mentioned that the French had dis- 

 covered the Rosetta stone, which was the key to the reading of the 

 Egyptian hieroglyphics. But there did not appear to be any clue to the 

 origin of these wonderful carvings on Easter Island. He said there was 

 a great field open for discovery on these Polynesian Islands. He men- 

 tioned the distribution of plants as most important, and he hoped full col- 

 lections would be made. The paper was most suggestive and interesting. 



Major-General Schaw added that it was strange to find such wonder- 

 ful monuments and carvings on such a small island ; might it not be the 

 remains of a much larger island, or continent ? 



Mr. Tregear said he had been very pleased to be able to bring so sug- 

 gestive and valuable a paper as Mr. Rutland's before the Society. There 

 were several points on which he did not hold the same opinion as Mr. 

 Rutland, and it was probable that others would also disagree, but this 

 fact only showed the great use of starting lines of thought on this sub- 

 ject which would provoke others to write papers from these texts. He 

 (Mr. Tregear) did not agree with Mr. Rutland's speaking of the Maori as 

 belonging to the Malay family ; ethnologically the Malay and Polynesian 

 were of totally distinct types, and this was now generally recognised. Why 

 the Polynesians did not use pottery, when they were in contact with 

 islanders who did so, was one of the puzzles of the Pacific, and, like the 

 absence of the bow and arrow as war-weapons among the light- brown 

 people of Oceania, had not yet found explanation. The Pacific was full 

 of unsolved problems and mysteries. The greatest of these was Easter 

 Island. The fact of the existence of great statues on Easter Island, of a 

 pyramid in Tahiti, of huge walls on Ponape and Strang Island only 



