WELLINGTON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 
—TƏ 
First MEETING. 6th August, 1873. 
James Hector, M.D., F.R.S, President, in the chair. 
New members.—Charles W. Purnell, Thomas Lewis, Charles Rous Marten, 
F.R.G.S., F.M.S, W. 5. Moorhouse, Hugh Calders, Wilson Heaps, George 
Michell Nation, G. H. Wilson. 
Various publications received since last meeting were laid on the table, 
and a list of the principal donations lately added to the Colonial Museum was 
read. 
The retiring President delivered the following anniversary 
ADDRESS. 
Before proceeding to the business of the evening I have to announce to the 
Society the loss of one of its most active and zealous members, through the 
recent death of Dr. Frederick Knox, at the ripe age of 82. More than half a 
century ago Dr. Knox was the assistant and friend of some of the leading 
anatomists of that day. As curator of the. Museum of the College of 
Surgeons in Edinburgh, and as assistant to Dr. Barclay, he was chiefly 
instrumental in produeing that magnificent collection of anatomical 
preparations, illustrative of the various forms of animal life, which is known as 
the Barcleian Museum. ` Upon the retirement of Dr. Barclay from the Cbair 
of Anatomy, in 1824, he became assistant to his brother, the eminent and 
brilliant leeturer on comparative anatomy, and continued to be eurator of the 
Museum until he emigrated to this colony in 1840. During his career in 
the old country he effected many discoveries in anatomy, and especially 
in connection with his favourite branch of study—the Cetacea; and, in his 
later days, he frequently had just cause to complain that many of his 
early discoveries, disputed or neglected at the time they were made, had 
been since appropriated by subsequent writers. Since the foundation of the 
New Zealand Society, of which he was one of the original members, he has 
taken a lively interest in its proceedings, and there have been but few meetings 
at which some anatomical preparation, evincing his characteristic skill and 
industry, has not been exhibited as a new addition to the Museum. His last 
contributions were the skeletons of the male and female elephant fish, which 
