OEDINAEY GENEPtAL MEETING.* 

 Martin L. Rouse, Esq., B.L., tn the Chair. 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and contirmed, and the 

 following election was announced : — 



Member : — Herr Ole Theodor Olsen, F.RG.S. 

 Tlie following paper was read by the author : — 



THE PHYSICAL HISTORY OF THE FJORDS OF 

 NEW ZEALAND, By J. Malcolm Maclaren, Esq., 

 B.Sc, F.G.S. 



Introductorif. — The fjord basins — locaHy termed the West 

 Coast Sounds — of New Zealand are situated on the western 

 coast of the Province of Otago, in the South Mand. They 

 he approximately on the meridian of 167° E. Long., between 

 the parallels of 44° and 46° S. Lat., and run with a general 

 east to Avest direction, penetrating from ten to twenty miles 

 into the mountains by narrow and tortuous channels, which 

 vary in width from a feAv hundred yards to a mile and a 

 half. They are some fourteen in number, the best known 

 being Milford Sound in the north and Dusky Sound and 

 Preservation Inlet in the south. Access to the majority 

 can be had only from the sea, the steep mountain ranges, 

 and the dense vegetation thereon, forming an almost im- 

 penetrable barrier to those approacliing from the central 

 Otago plain or from the Lake District. It is these ranges 

 that furnish i\\Q' Notornis 3Itmtdli, or takahe, the rarest of 

 all existing birds, with a habitat so secure that, since 1840, 

 only five specimens have been obtained. 



* Held Monday, March 3rd, 1902. 



