WELLINGTON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



Fiest Meeting. l&th June, 1883. 

 The Hon. G. Randall Johnson, President, in the chair. 

 New Members. — F. Stevens and Dr. Grabham. 



1. Address by President. 



ABSTRACT. 



He said the Society had been constituted fifteen years, and its efforts had been suc- 

 cessful in harmonizing views and in stimulating concerted action upon a wide range of 

 scientific and philosophical subjects. He then reviewed the work of the Society during 

 the past year. Speaking of University matters, he suggested the importance of having a 

 College established in Wellington similar to those in the other chief cities of the colony. 

 Eef erring, at the close of his address, to the recent ascent of Mount Cook by Mr. Green, 

 and to conflicting theories as to glacier action on the high lands in these islands as we see 

 them now, he inclined to the theory that the accumulations of snow on plateaux above 

 the line of perpetual snow would send down glaciers to scour deep fiords aud narrow 

 valleys till the area of the plateaux became reduced by this very process of vertical denu- 

 dation ; this theory being more in accord with our existing geological knowledge than the 

 more extreme supposition of a glacial epoch similar to that which was conjectured to have 

 once covered Europe. From all that was known of New Zealand geology, he concluded 

 that from long prior to the glacial epoch down to the present time, the same physical 

 forces had been at work, in the same manner and with the same intensity. The frost had 

 continued without intermission to break down the cliffs ; the glaciers all along scoured 

 the valleys, polished the rocks, and carried the debris to valleys and plains below ; the 

 water most efficiently distributing what was so brought down ; the only difference of cir- 

 cumstance being attributable to the alteration effected by those very forces in the mass on 

 which they had been so long at work, and the consequent diminution of the power of the 

 glaciers. 



2. Dr. Hutchinson exhibited recent photographic views of the large active volcano 

 which forms a prominent landmark in the Sandwich Islands, and gave some interesting 

 information explanatory of the photographs. 



Dr. Hector said the evidence afforded by these photographs of the extremely fluid 

 nature of the lava-flow from these volcanoes was most remarkable. 



3. " On the Igneous Rocks of the East Coast of Wellington," by A. 

 McKay. (See Geol. Reports, 1883). 



ABSTRACT. 



The author described the geological features of a series of low hills and gullies about 

 fourteen miles from Masterton, on Mr. Beetham's run ; and showed a model indicating a 

 well-defined crater, which he had no doubt was the low neck of an extinct volcano, which 

 was in activity during the cretaceous period. He inferred from the adjacent strata, that 

 the volcano was not ancient in a geological sense, though he offered no comparative data 

 as to the period of its probable activity. 



