PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
Тн following is the presidential address delivered before the New Zealand 
Institute on the 29th January, 1924, at Wellington, by Professor H. B. 
Kirk :— 
died in the early part of last year—Dr. Isaac Bayley Balfour, Keeper of 
the Royal Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh, and formerly Professor of Botany 
zed as 
one of the leading botanists of the world, one of the finest and one of the 
tion Committee of Tokyo, recognized as a first authority on seismology. 
He returned to Japan seriously ill, and died almost immediately after 
Institute, it is fitting that we should do honour to his memory, and a 
resolution will be submitted to you during the course of this meeting. 
ong prominent members of the Institute that have died during the 
year were Professor F. D. Brown, Mr. R. Murdoch, and Mr. W. F. Worley. 
The standing of the Institute in public esteem in New Zealand remains 
good, although the financial difficulties through which it has been passing 
have been very great. Especially great has been the strain put on the 
loyalty of the constituting societies by the necessity to curtail the T'rans- 
actions, to maintain the levy, and generally to endeavour to discharge 
have, on the whole, not failed to recognize that they are the Institute, and 
that its acts are in reality their own acts through their delegates, better 
informed than the majority of the members as to the work of the Inst itute, 
its needs and its difficulties. 
