April 24, 1884] 



NATURE 



607 



was the intention to establish a camp, and leave behind a 

 section of the party and of the escort. Col. Prjevalsky, with his 

 companions, will push forward to the sources of the Yellow 

 River, and even to the towns of Chambo and Batanou. If the 

 circumstances are propitious, the expedition will devote the 

 spring and summer of 1884 to the exploration of the region of 

 .Sifanei, between Koko-Nor and Batanou, where it will surely 

 find abundant natural riches to explore. In autumn the exiJedi- 

 tion will return to its encampment. A part of the baggage will 

 be sent to Gast, in Tsaidam, where they will establish a second 

 camp. From Gast the expedition will traverse Northern Thibet 

 in'^lie direction of Lhassa, and will try to penetrate as far as the 

 Lake Tenegri-Pora, to reach afterw ards, if circumstances permit, 

 either the province of Dsang, or to the Brahmaputra. If not 

 successful, however, the expedition will return part of the way 

 and then go northwards to Ladak and to Lake Daigro-Jum-Tcho. 

 From thence it will return to Gast, and try afterwards to go 

 across the plateau of Thibet in another direction. From Gast, 

 wliich they expect to reach in the spring of 1S85, a part of the 

 expedition will go towards Lob-Nor, and the other part towards 

 Keria, that they also may reach Lob-Nor by way of Tcherkin. 

 The two sections of the expedition will afterwards go together to 

 Karakorum, and along the Khoton, and then return by Alsa to 

 .\siatic Russia, near the Lake Issak-kiU. Col. Prjevalsky left 

 St. Petersburg on August 3, 18S3, accompanied by Sub- Lieutenant 

 Roborovsky, his assistant, and a volunteer, Kozlofif. At (3urga 

 tliey were joined by twenty soldiers for an escort, and on 

 November 8 they left Ourga to cross the Desert of Gobi. The 

 telegram just received from Alashan (dated January 20) tells of 

 the safe arrival there of the expedition. 



Geographers will be glad to find in the last volume of the 

 Izvestia of the Caucasus Geographical Society a number of astro- 

 nomical determinations of positions of places in the Transcaspian 

 region, by M. Gladyshefl'. We find in the list a number of 

 points in the oases of Akhal-tekke and Merv, and in Khorassan, 

 and notice that the exact position of Sarakhs (western corner of 

 the citadel) is 36' 32' I4"'S N. lat. and 6l° 10' 10" E. long., 860 

 feet above the sea ; that of Merv (garden at Kaushut-khan-kala) 

 37° 35' i8"'3 N. lat. and 60° 47' 16" E. long., 900 feet above the 

 sea ; and that of Meshed (cupola of Imam Riza) 36" 17' 25"'6 

 N. lat. and 59° 37' 27" E. long. The same volume contains a 

 great number of heiglus measured in Asia Minor by Russian 

 officers. 



The last issue of the~ Izvestia of the Russian Geographical 

 Society contains a preliminary report of a journey made by 

 MM. Adrianoft'and Klementz in the still little-known islands to 

 the south-west of Minusinsk ; a note by MM. Hedroitz and 

 Lessar, being a reply to M. Konshin's paper on the Kara-kum 

 sands and the former bed of the Amu; a note, by M. Malakhoff 

 on the remains of prehistoric man on the Nyeman, close by 

 Druskeniki ; the necrology of Admiral Putyatin, by Baron 

 Osten-Sacken ; and a note by M. Piltchikoff, on a magnetic 

 anomaly between Kursk and Kharkoff. 



ON THE PROGRESS OF GEOLOGY^ 



TN' addressing you to-night at the opening of the session 1883 

 of Canterbury College, may I be allowed to appeal fir,-t to 

 your kind indulgence? On an occasion like this you have a 

 right to expect that only the be^t and most refined English 

 .■-hould reach y.iur ear ; and if this to-n'ght is not the ca;e, y.u 

 will, I tru^t, he lenient with me, as only very few foreigners 

 have ever been able to master the beautiful and expressive Eng- 

 lish language so thoroughly that they would not now and then 

 offend the ear of an educated audience. 



When I look round me in ihis fine hall, and see before me 

 such a large audience, of which a number consists of graduates 

 of Canterbury College, it appears almost like a dream aid 

 not a reality — a reality of wliich we have every reason to be 

 proud. 



It is about sixteen years ago that a few earnest men, having 

 the intellectual advancement of Canterbury at heart, met and 

 proposed to found a univer.'-ity in Chri.-tchurch ; but they were 

 told by a not inconsiderable number of our citizens, some in 

 high posi'ioBS, that we were about a hundred years in advance 

 of the wants of the colony. However, we per.-evered, and at 



' An opening address delivered to the students of Canterbury Ctllege tn 

 March jS, 1SS3. by Julius von Haasl, Ph D., F.R.S., Professor of Geology 

 and Palaoniology in Canterbury College (N.Z. University). 



la^t succeeded ; and the best proof of the correctness of our 

 views is the number of the graduates of the New Zealand Uni- 

 versity, of v\ horn there are now twenty-one Masters of Arts and 

 forty-nine Bachelors of Arts, together seventy ; of whom Can- 

 terbury College can claim twenty-nine of its own, many of whom 

 would be an ornament to any univernty of the home country. 



And although the greater portion of our graduates mostly 

 apply the knowledge gained to the education of others, they 

 continue their studies for their further intellectual progress long 

 after they have gained their well-earned degrees. 



To my mind no more ennobling or higher sphere can le 

 selected by anybody than that of the teacher. What mental 

 energy, what moral devotion are required in the teacher, who 

 can only be successful if he has his whole heart in the work, so 

 that the chain of human sympathy, the most powerful tie in 

 mankind, unites him with his pupil. In a young country, where 

 wealth is generally considered to give power, position, and 

 influence, and the " auri sacra James" is much developed, only 

 a refined mind can gladly and willingly turn away from those 

 pursuits by which w-ealth is more easily obtained, in order to 

 devote himself entirely to the education of the young. 



Moreover, nothing shows us more clearly than teaching that 

 we have only put our foot on the first step of the ladder leading 

 to knowledge. \Ve remain students our whole life ; and I trust 

 that none of our graduates will ever overrate the step gained, 

 but that they will consider that the degree obtained has only 

 given them an insight into the dominion of Knowledge, and has 

 shown them how much they have still to learn ; and that in fact 

 they have become masters of the art how to learn to the advan- 

 tage of themselves as well as of others. 



Befure entering into the subject I have chosen for to-night's 

 address, I wish to make only a few remarks upon the develop- 

 ment the Univer ity of New Zealand ought to take, so as to 

 satisfy the present and future wants of our population. It was 

 only to be expected that in the beginning its founders should 

 have been guided by the curriculum of the great centres of 

 learning in Great Britain, although even then some of the newer 

 improvements were not adopted ; but I may point out that 

 under the different circumstances in which we live in a colony, 

 w e ought to have more cosmopolitan views, and profit by the 

 experience of those State-; and communities which our conditions 

 resemble most. In fact, the University of New Zealand ought 

 to be eclectic, and to select for assimilation in its constitution 

 the best as to manner and matter of teacliing from all parts of 

 the world. 



According to my views it ought not to be at present the 

 highest aim of a university course to offer a mass of knowledge 

 of a chaotic character in a number of subjects, but to make the 

 student acquainted with the general principles of the stock of 

 knowledi;€ possessed by the world and its application to life ; 

 to know in what direction that genual stock is most deficient, 

 and in what manner it can be augmented and made more useful 

 both intellectUiUy and practically. 



The study of philosophy, in the highest and most general 

 acceptance of the term, is one of the greatest wants for any 

 university that intends to educate thinkers, men and women who 

 not only wish to use their acquired knowledge for earning their 

 daily bread, but to advance the human underbtanding. 



Advancing to the subject upon which I wish to address you 

 to-night, I have thought that some remarks on the progress 

 geology has made and is daily making would not be inappro- 

 priate. I should also like to show, though owiig to the short 

 time assigned to me this can only be done in a fragmentary 

 manner, how from an empirical science it has gradually been 

 raised to be an inductive science fully deserving, as far as actual 

 observations go, to claim the position of an exact science. 



If we consult " The Cyclopedia, or an Universal Dictionary 

 of Arts and Sciences," by E. Chambers, F. R.S., London, four 

 large fjlio volumes, of which the first appeared \\\ 1779 and the 

 fourth in 1783, an excellent work, for which s ime of the most 

 eminent men of the last century wrote, we find that the word 

 geology, or geogur sy, did not exist at that time, the principal 

 information upon the formation and constitution of our earth 

 being contained in the articles on basaltes, eartb, fossils, geo- 

 graphy, lithology, marine remains, mineralogy, mountain, rock.s, 

 stone, and volcano. 



'Ihe explanation of the formation of "stones" is in many 

 instances exceedingly erroi.ejus, and appears ludicrous to us ; 

 whilst the explanation of the nature and occurrence of fossils 

 is given quite correctly, although the theory of Tournefort, pro- 



