Wellington Philosophical Society. 433 



The statement of accounts shows that the funds at the disposal of the Council for 

 the year amounted to £172 13s. 7d. ; that £57 4s. has been spent on the museum and 

 in the purchase of books, and that there is a balance of £45 17s. 9d. to the credit of the 

 Society. 



Election of Officers for 1881. — President — James Hector, M.D., 

 C.M.G., F.E.S. ; Vice Presidents— Br. BuUer, C.M.G., F.E.S., and the 

 Hon. G. Eandall Johnson, M.L.C. ; Council— W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S., 

 T. Kirk, F.L.S., Dr. Newman, M.B., J. P. Maxwell, C.E., F. W. 

 Frankland, E. H. Grovett, Martin Chapman ; Secretary and Treasurer — E. 

 B. Gore ; Auditor — W. M. Bannatyne. 



Mr. Chairman then delivered a brief address on retiring from the 

 Presidency. 



ABSTRACT. 



He remarked that colonists generally were too busily engaged in combating the forces 

 of nature to have leisure for scientific investigation. Only a few had opportunity to 

 labour in the immense field open here, and they were doing so under conditions which 

 were daily becoming more difficult and expensive to obtain results of value. Certain 

 branches of science, however, must be cultivated here, otherwise their cultivation else- 

 where would not benefit us — such were geology and chemistry (especially in relation to 

 mining), zoology, agriculture, and botany. Discoveries elsewhere in those subjects would 

 not benefit us, unless we had observations here to compare with them. This had hitherto 

 been recognized by the Government, who had maintained an efficient staff of geologists, 

 chemists, meteorologists, etc. The expenditure on geology had enriched the country so 

 as to recoup over and over the cost incurred. A great deal of scientific work was done in 

 New Zealand by private persons, which would be barren were there not a society able to 

 publish it, and so bring it into relation with similar work done abroad. A very large 

 amount of the matter in the annual volume of the " Transactions of the N.Z. Institute " 

 recounted new discoveries and recorded facts to be found nowhere else, and these volumes 

 were highly appreciated by learned bodies in other parts of the world. A larger amount 

 was published by the New Zealand Institute than by similar bodies in any other of the 

 colonies, and the matter was not inferior. This colony now took a worthy place in the 

 scientific world, and would so long as the Institute, with its affiliated societies, existed. 

 It had been urged against them that their papers were wholly speculative and meta- 

 physical, but the reproach was a most unjust one. The New Nealand Institute received a 

 subsidy of £500 a year from Government. This money was expended in publishing the 

 Transactions for all the societies, nine in number. Some of the societies maintained 

 museums of their own, but the Wellington Society used the museum of the Institute, 

 paying a sixth of its funds towards this purpose. Should the Government subsidy be 

 withdrawn, it would be a most severe blow to scientific research in the colony. It would 

 temporarily stop the publication of the Transactions, with a consequent loss in member- 

 ship of the societies, and would sever their relations with kindred societies elsewhere. 

 The geological record of the colony represented an amount of skill, labour, and adventure 

 which few could realize. People seeing a number of neat labelled specimens little thought 

 of the months of toil and hardship undergone in getting them. The work done in geolo- 

 gical research in New Zealand reflected the highest credit on all engaged, and the same 

 remark would apply to paleontology, and, to a lesser extent, to ethnology. The fields of 



55 



