Wellington Philosophical Society. 499 



over the Australian continent, but the regular gyration of the winds through 

 successive quarters had been quite overlooked. This rotation is performed in 

 from five to seven days, and through its influence large columns of the 

 atmosphere are transferred from one area to another. Prevalent wind in 

 New Zealand only means that there is a preponderance of wind from a certain 

 quarter, and not a steady wind like the trades. The fact is undoubted that 

 warm winds from the N.W. do impinge on New Zealand, but the only fair 

 way to discuss this subject is by making use of the abundant meteorological 

 data which have been accumulated. 



Fifth Meeting. 2dth August, 1874. 

 Charles Knight, F.E.C.S., President, in the chair. 



1. " Notes upon the probable Changes that have taken place in the 

 Physical Geography of New Zealand since the Arrival of the Maori," by 

 T. H. Cockburn-Hood. (Transactions^ p. 112.) 



The Hon. Mr. Waterhouse said, with regard to the tree mentioned by the 

 author as having been found recently in Auckland, that he did not think 

 there was sufficient evidence to show that it had been felled by human agency, 

 and this discovery could hardly be taken as a proof that these islands were 

 inhabited at so early a date as the paper seemed to indicate. He considered 

 that Mr. Hale's theory regarding the early occupation of New Zealand was 

 open to doubt. 



Mr. J. A. Wilson was pleased to hear this large and interesting question 

 referred to. He could not, however, agree with all that the author of the 

 paper had advanced. There was a philological difficulty in the way of the 

 assumption that the Maoris had been long in New Zealand. When Cook first 

 visited these shores, rather more than a hundred years ago, he was rejoiced to 

 find that Tupia, whom he had brought with him from the Friendly Islands, 

 understood the Maoris perfectly. Cook states distinctly that Tupia's language 

 and the language of the Indians were the same, differing only in dialect. 

 Coupling this with the fact that barbarous languages change more rapidly 

 than languages having a literature, and that the latter as spoken 500 years 

 ago are almost unintelligible now, we have reason to infer that the Maori 

 language has not been separated from its parent stem longer than the time 

 mentioned by the natives themselves. That time was from sixteen to eighteen 

 generations ago. The present King Tawhiao was the sixteenth in direct 

 descent from Hoturoa, who landed at Kawhia from Tainui canoe, and the 

 genealogies of the principal chiefs whose fathers came in the various canoes 

 from Hawaiki, will all be found to cover a similar period. The Maori 

 genealogies were good evidence, and could be no more lightly cast aside than 



