Haast.—On the Early History of the Canterbury Museum. 503 
Arr. LXXVIII.—Origin and Early History of the Canterbury Museum : being 
the Annual Address. By Professor Junius von Haast, Ph.D., F.RB.S., 
President of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. 
[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 16th June, 1881.] 
Havine by your goodwill been called to preside at your meetings, I was 
unfortunately prevented from delivering the customary address at the 
appointed time, being then in Melbourne on official business, and since my 
return I have been so much occupied in despatching the accumulated 
arrears that I am only to-day enabled to address you and to congratulate 
you on the advance our Society has made, and on its healthy condition and 
Prospects. We have, it is true, passed through trying times since its 
foundation in 1862, and such times may come again; however, I am sure 
that the devotion of those members who have the advancement of science 
and the triumph of truth at heart, will steer our barque with steady hand 
over the troubled waters, and gain and retain for our institution such 
& position that those of us who stood at its cradle have all cause to be 
Proud of its achievements. Instead of offering you a review of the results 
of research in the various branches of science, I have, in my few last 
addresses, taken the liberty to devote the time at my command to one or 
tro subjects, then uppermost in my mind, and which I thought might be of 
interest to you. 
In this year’s address, with your permission, I wish to speak to you of 
another institution, at the gradle of which I stood also, like a number of 
our older members, whose hearty co-operation I enjoyed, and by whose 
powerful help that institution has grown from a small beginning to con- 
siderable dimensions. My subject this evening will therefore be “The ~ 
Origin and Early Progress of the Canterbury Museum,” in the course of 
Which I wish to bring before you some facts concerning its infant days, and 
to preserve some recollections, which now, still fresh in our memory, will, 
in after years, when that institution has become still more fully a deposi- 
tory of all that is valuable and instructive in science, art, and industry, be 
of great interest to our successors. And as the Philosophical Institute, as 
Soon as the Canterbury Museum wanted assistance, both intellectual and 
en at 
