442 Proceedings. 
£32 0s. 4d. The subscriptions for the year amounted to £155 8s., and the 
Provincial Government made a grant to the Society of £100 for the purchase 
of books and museum objects. The amount of £79 12s. 3d. has been 
expended in books, and £73 3s. on objects for the Museum. 
ELECTION oF OFFICERS FOR 1872. — President, T. Heale; Cowncil— 
J. L Campbell, M. D., E B. Gillies, Rev, A. G. Purchas, M. R. C.S. E., 
Hon. Col: Haultain, T. Russell, T. Kirk, F.L.S., J. Stewart, C.E, H. H. 
Lusk, T. F. 8. Tinne, J. M. Clark, Rev. J. Kinder, M.A. 
Seconp Meetine. 24th June, 1872. 
T. Heale, President, in the chair. 
New members.—T. L. White, S. P. Smith, N. Kelly, R. J. Pearce, E. 
Perkins. 
The list of donations to the Library and Museum was read by the Secretary. 
The President delivered the following anniversary 
ADDRESS. 
I propose, in opening this session, to take a slight and cursory review of 
some of the leading subjects which are agitating scientific opinion at home, 
and the familiarizing of which by discussion here should, in my opinion, form 
one of the leading objects of this Society, in due subordination, of course, to 
its proper function of investigating, discussing, and recording the natural 
phenomena around us. 
The difficulty of keeping the mind at all ona level with current knowledge 
and advancement on the larger subjects of investigation, is one of the disadvan- 
tages incident to a colonial life. This disadvantage our Society has striven 
to lessen by obtaining, as far as its slender means have afforded, a nucleus of a 
scientific library, to which we hope to make continual additions, and which is 
freely open to the public. I propose to make an attempt to utilize these books, 
or at all events to draw attention to them, by one of those slight and conver- 
sational papers which I have before recommended, and which thongh not 
suitable for publication in our Transactions, inasmuch as it is not scientific, 
nor based on original investigation, may serve to stimulate attention and 
perhaps to elicit replies, and so to make our monthly meeting more interesting 
to those members not devoted to natural history. 
I think I am safe in assuming that by far the leading place in scientific, or 
indeed in intelligent unscientific thought, is occupied in our day by the dis- 
cussions arising out of the great and fertile theory of the development of 
species, propounded by Mr. Darwin; a theory which Prof. Huxley has happily 
