Auckland Institute. 423 
deeply interesting people. There is yet much to be done, which, to be done 
well, can only be done now; and I think, to those of our members who 
have peculiar facilities for the work, there can be few objects more deserving 
their attention than the preservation of memorials of the Maori. 
If any testimony were needed of the patriotism and valour of the Maori 
race, I have but to point to the long, unequal, and valiant struggle the 
Maori race has made against us with indifferent arms, without extraneous 
support, without any chronicle of their achievements—save that furnished 
by their opponents—maintaining a long struggle against 10,000 of the 
flower of English troops, and against an equal number of sturdy colonists 
fighting pro aris et focis, provided with every appliance of modern warfare, 
and even yet—after a ten years’ struggle—still unsubdued. I think we 
shall find it difficult to parallel, even in Greek or Roman story, their 
unaided, patriotic, and valiant contest. I am convinced that in each 
succeeding generation, a truer estimate will be formed of the many noble 
qualities of this heroic race now departing silently and surely from the land 
of their fathers. 
Let me therefore urge upon you to seize every opportunity to preserve 
the implements, the fortifications, the sayings, and doings, in a word, the 
memorials of a people which has done so much to invest the past of the 
land we live in with a halo of noble and romantic sentiment. 
Whilst then we endeavour to rescue whatever is of value in the past, let 
me remind you that the present demands our attention. Our efforts must 
be directed to stimulate the pursuit of art, science, literature, commerce, 
and social economies, so that the present of the land of our adoption may do 
its part in creating, and be worthy of, the great futwre in store for us and 
for our descendents. 
To this end a close observation of facts, not only by scientific members 
but by non-scientific members, is indispensible. In this Colony nature 
presents so much that is new, so much that is difficult, so much that is 
interesting to ourselyes and to the outside world, that we may well pro- 
secute our work with vigour. The Province of Auckland especially offers a 
field for enquiry which will not only well repay the philosophic enquirer, 
but will reward the unscientific observer. The neighbourhood of the city 
abounds with picturesque evidences of powerful volcanic action. Our fern- 
covered plains, though evidently full of vital energy, do not yield readily to 
the efforts of the agriculturist—probably from the long continued acid 
exudations of successive growths of fern root—to turn that energy to the 
vigorous production of plants and grasses of economic value. Our moun- 
tain ranges covered with noble trees, with whose valuable properties we are 
as yet but partially acquainted, and which indeed we are recklessly 
