471 Proceedings. 



Asia Minor, of Northern Africa, of Greece, and even of Alpine Europe where 



the operation of causes set in action by man has brought the face of the earth 



to a desolation almost as complete as that of the moon. The destructive 



changes occasioned by the agency of man upon the flanks of the Alps, the 



Apennines, the Pyrenees, and other mountain regions in Central and Southern 



Europe, and the progress of physical deterioration, have become so rapid that 



in some localities a single generation has witnessed the beginning and the end 



of the melancholy revolution." 



I know no sight more sad than to witness the destruction by fire of forests 



on the hill-sides — those mournful streaks sweeping along the more accessible 

 sides of the ranges, with blackened trunks like Banquo's ghosts here and there 

 in the midst — without parallel the most melancholy spectacle of wasteful 

 destruction. I have doubts of the probability of much immediate good being 

 effected in the way of planting in the permanent settled districts of the Colony. 

 But there can be no doubt of our power to stay the destruction of forests on 

 the ranges and on other lands not well adapted for agriculture. Here we 

 have unquestionable means not only of staying wanton destruction, but of 

 securing the successional growth of trees to make good the full grown timber 

 when removed. To plant land with valuable timber is a slow process — to 

 preserve what we have is surely our duty. It is on the ranges and highly 

 broken ground that the timber is most effective in ameliorating a climate and 

 of feeding the streams from which the plains may be irrigated. 



The most interesting of our papers is that by Dr. Hector on the huge 

 Fossil Reptilian Remains lately discovered in the South Island. That 

 memoir has a value for all time. As a contribution to the knowledge of those 

 enormous reptiles it will certainly engage the careful study of scientific men 

 both in Europe and North America. Contemporaneous with these discoveries 

 we find, from the report of Cope, that similar skeletons of these monsters of 

 the ancient seas are being found in the cretaceous strata of the Kansas, in 

 North America. 



ains 



be 



titanic race, who had been 



board never to return) 



Cope, 



leading 



monster of the ancient sea. He 



vertebral column running 



prison ; or a paddle extended on the slope as though entreating aid ; or a 

 pair of jaws lined with horrid teeth, which grin despair on enemies they are 

 helpless to resist : or he mav find a conic mound on whosp aw crliafon in 



