INAUGURAL ADDRESS. V 



men who mastered the Native dialects, reduced them to a 

 written language, collected and placed on record the 

 traditional knowledge of the interesting Maori, and had 

 among their numbers some industrious naturalists M'ho 

 never lost an opportunity of collecting natural objects. 



The history of how the country, under the mixed influ- 

 ences for good and for evil which prevailed almost without 

 Government control until IS^O, was gradually ripened for 

 the colonist, is familiar to all. So far as science is con- 

 cerned_, the new era may be said to have begun Avith 

 Dieffenbach, a naturalist who was employed by the New 

 .Zealand Company. He travelled and obtained much in- 

 formation, but did not collect to any great extent, and, in 

 fact, appears not to have anticipated that much remained 

 to be discovered. For his conclusion is that the small- 

 ness of the number of species of animals and plants then 

 known — about one-tenth of our present lists — was not 

 due to want of acquaintance with the country, but to 

 paucity of life-forms. The chief scientific value of his 

 published work is in the appendix, giving the first syste- 

 matic list of the fauna and flora of the country, the former 

 being compiled by the late Dr. Gray, of the British 

 Museum. 



The next great scientific work done for New Zealand was 

 the Admiralty survey of the coast-line, which is a per- 

 fect marvel of accurate topography, and one of the greatest 

 boons the colony has received from the Mother-country. 

 The enormous labour and expense which were incurred on 

 this survey at an early date in the history of the colony is 

 a substantial evidence of the confidence in its future de- 

 velopment and commercial requirements which animated 

 the Home Government. 



On the visit of the Austrian exploring shij) " Novara " 

 to Auckland in 1859, Von Hochstettcr was left behind, at 

 the request of the Government, to make a prolonged ex- 

 cursion in the North Island and in Nelson ; and he it 

 was who laid the foundation of our knowledge of the 

 strati graphical geology of New Zealand. 



Since then the work of scientific research has been 



