OTAGO INSTITUTE. 



First Meeting : 8th May, 1906. 

 The President, Dr. P. Marshall, occupied the chair. 



New Members. —Messrs. G. T. Goodman, G. Austin, G. A . 

 Rawson, R. S. Rankin, and the Rev. Dr. Nisbet. 



The President stated the steps that had been taken in regard 

 to the Hutton Memoria.l Research Fund. 



Some members of the Institute had subscribed to it, but he trusted' 

 others would feel sufficiently interested and sufficiently indebted to the 

 late Captain Hutton for the work he had done to subscribe to the fund., 

 which would be a memorial of his life's work. 



The President delivered an address on " The History of 

 Volca,nic Action in New Zealand." 



It was frequently remarked, he said, by visitors to the colony that,, 

 judging by the volcanoes in the North Island and the evidences of vol- 

 canic action elsewhere, this must be a young country. It was interesting 

 to look around and see whether, from the evidence to be everywhere found 

 of volcanic action, this was really so. There were plenty of evidences 

 in the North Island — the cones around Auckland, the hot springs in the- 

 neighbourhood of Rotorua, and the steaming volcanoes further south. 

 Anybody travelling over the country could easily gain an idea of the work 

 that volcanoes had done in forming the country. The geologist, of course, 

 made a deeper study than did the casual observei-. He looked into the- 

 rocks, and from an examination of the minerals that occurred in them 

 he was able to say whether a rock had solidified from fusion or whether 

 it had been deposited by water. If the former, the conclusion was that 

 it was a volcanic rock. Thus it was in the neighbourhood of Dunedin. 

 Certainly, the hills around showed little evidence, so far as their external' 

 formation was concerned, of volcanic activity, and a certain amount of 

 geological knowledge was required before the district could be recognised 

 as a volcanic district. Very often, however, volcanoes were destroyed 

 by the action of water and air, so that not only the cone was removed' 

 but also the old reservoir through which the minerals were thrown out. 

 Generally speaking, the material for compiling a volcanic history of a' 

 district could be found in three ways — first, in the external configuration ; 

 second, if the external configuration was destroyed, in the structure of the- 

 rocks ; and finally, in old reservoirs that were probably connected with: 

 volcanoes at one time. Even after a volcano had disappeared it was 

 possible that in other districts pebbles or rock fragments would be found' 

 that would show that a volcano had once existed in the neighbourhood. 

 The rocks of New Zealand had been more or less carefully studied from 

 one end to the other. In the South Island there was in the south-western 

 district a large area showing igneous rocks, which might indicate the age 

 of New Zealand. They contained certain structures that showed they 



