Gorp-Swrrg.— Description of Mayor Island. 417 
matter of the soil and the roots of the higher plants. I throw this out 
merely as a suggestion, but I think the question well worthy of further 
investigation, particularly as I find that these Bacteria are most abundant 
in clay, the inorganic constituents of which can hardly afford nourishment 
to the roots which so abundantly penetrate it. 
The transmutation of vital force would then seem to go in a perpetual 
eircle—the higher organisms deriving theirs originally from their parent 
forms, and then constantly recruiting it, as it is dissipated or converted into 
other forces, from the lower forms, and then giving it back to these in the 
process of transformation, decay, or death. 
I believe that the numerous discoveries of Bacteria made of late years in 
morbid products of the human body, in the bodies of the higher vertebrates 
are merely expressions of this fact; that the Bacteria are simply the results 
of the morbid processes, and not their causes. All diseased or unhealthy 
tissues are in a state of incipient death—their mode of nutrition, their pro- 
cess of growth and development not being the normal ones, they are more 
likely to become the nursery grounds of Bacteria than the healthy tissues 
are, which have an inherent power of resisting the presence of these lower 
forms of life; but to enter fully into this subject would lead me too far 
from the main question of this paper. 
To conclude then, I maintain that,— 
1st. A living being is a form of protoplasm which possesses within itself the 
power of motion not derived ab extra, of self-nutrition, and of reproduction. 
2nd. That the force or combination of forces which gives to protoplasms 
these qualities and powers is called life. 
3rd. That, if life results from a combination of forces, these must be 
endowed with intelligence, and act towards a common end. 
4th. That the ordinary forces of nature—such as light, heat, chemical 
affinity, gravity, motion, and the others—are not thus endowed. 
5th. That therefore the foree which we call for convenience the vital 
force is a distinct and special force. 
Arr. LIII.— Description of Mayor Island. 
By E. C. Gorp-Surrg, District Surveyor, Tauranga. 
[Read before the Auckland Institute, 11th August, 1884.] 
Mayor Istanp, or Tuhua, is situated in the Bay of Plenty, twenty-three 
miles north of Tauranga Harbour and about sixteen miles from the nearest 
part of the coast of the North Island. Its name was given to it by Captain 
Cook, who discovered it on the 8rd November, 1769, when on his first 
voyage to New Zealand, " 
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