452 Proceedings. 
engineers, so the Central Institution is intended to afford practical, scientific, and artistic 
instruction, which will qualify persons to become —(1) technical teachers ; (2) mechanical, 
civil, and electrical engineers. architects, builders, and decorative artists; (3) principals, 
superintendents, and managers of chemical and other manufacturing works. The details 
of the scheme are of course conceived on a scale, and with a view to an expenditure of 
funds, which exceed all practical limits for a city like Auckland ; but as I believe that the 
key to the future prosperity of this city is to be found in the development of her manufac- 
tures, any attempt, however humble, to afford tacilities for the acquisition of technical 
knowledge would be acceptable as tending to further local prosperity. In this direction 
the combined efforts of the Institute and University College, t foule with such private 
munificence as might from time to time be available, would I believe be productive of no 
small results." The President concluded his address as follows :—* 4 is not given to all 
of us to divert the current of human thought, or to remodel the universe. Most of us 
have to be content an1 thankful if we can, as passing travellers, add but a small pebble to 
the growing cairn. The great mass of human knowle ge is, for the most part, made up 
f the minute contributions of individuals, and, while we bow in reverence before the 
sdiieinais of master-minds, we cannot afford to despise the humbler labours of the 
majority. The truth of a great scientific theory can only be tested by the minute investi- 
gation of details, and n T some fact, in itself apparently insignificant, may be 
fraught with issues The only attitude that we can rightly 
assume is that of humble seekers after truth, Madile and yet fearless of results, knowing 
that nothing will be permanent that is not really true, and that nothing that is true can 
be unimportant. What the final result may be we can leave to take care of itself. We 
toiling upward in the night,’ and who shall prescribe the limits to which we may 
ultimately attain—for, to quote the words of Charles Kingsley : iibi is accused of 
trying to scale Olympus, by those who fancy that they have keel scaled it themselves, 
and will, of course, brook no rival in their fancied monopoly of w 
And yet Science may scale Olympus after all. Without Jaane: it, PM without 
knowing it, she may find herself hereafter upon a summit of which she never dreamed, 
surveying the Universe of God in the light of Him who made it and her, and remakes 
them both for ever and ever. On that summit She may stand hereafter, if only she goes 
on, as she goes now, in humility and patience; doing the duty which lies nearest her ; 
lured along the upward road, not by ambition, vanity, or greed, but Si — curiosity 
‘or aayi new pebble, and flower, and child, and savage, around her 
2. “ Notes on a Bird called Ee R Sai the Rev. 8. W. Bakar! 
e bird Malau was stated to be "ee pd on the little island Ninafou, to the north- 
ward E Tonga. It is confined to the immediate vicinity of a deep crater-likelake. In the 
not sit upon the eggs, but leaves them to be hatched by the heat of the sun. "They oung birds 
are fully fledged when they emerge from the egg, and take care of themselves sid any 
assistance from, the parent bird. 
Mr. Cheeseman stated that Mr. Baker's bird was a species of mound-builder called 
Megapodius pritchardi. A specimen was in the Museum, which was presented some years 
ago by Captain Rough; and a coloured drawing would be found in the “ Proceedings of 
the Zoological Society " for 1864. (See also Dr. Buller's account of this specimen under 
the name of Malan. Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iii., p. 14.) 
8, “ A Decade of new Feroniide," by Captain T. Broun, M.E.S, 
