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to the task a more cautions mind, or a more inexorable cletennination to 

 be content with none but true results. 



In addition to the foregoing, our society has, during the past year, 

 produced an essay, in which the difficulties in the way of a general 

 system of education are carefully considered, and a scheme proposed well 

 ■worthy the attention of our Legislature. 



The successful raising of the steamer "Taranaki," in Queen Charlotte 

 Sound, is described in a paper which, with its careful drawings of the 

 appliances used, will be of great yalue to those who may hereafter 

 attempt similar undei'takings. 



The great attention given in late years in the so-called stone epoch 

 of the human race, and the avidity with which every chip or flake 

 which could be imagined to have derived its present form from human 

 agency, has been collected, confer an interest on the far superior nature- 

 worked stones found on our drifting sand flats, which formerly they failed 

 to attract. When I refer to these stones, on which Mr. Travers has 

 favoured us with a few remarks, as superior, I do not of course speak of 

 them in comparison with the unmistakable celts, spear-heads, arrow- 

 heads, mining tools, and other forms familiar to us, and unquestionably 

 the work of human hands. But as in symmetry and finish they 

 assuredly far surpass the vast majority of those specimens which are 

 now collected as indubitably shaped by men, it is well that the attention 

 of those who make the early condition of our race their peculiar study, 

 should be directed to the existence of these very deceptive specimens. 

 Before leaving this subject, I cannot resist the temptation of adding 

 another to the many theories to which it has given birth. We know 

 that it was the practice of good old Maoris to bend into knots the 

 sterns of young manuka plants, in order that their children might be 

 suppHed with a stock of curved hardwood of which to make those large 

 and cumbrous shark-hooks, of which eveiy museum contains examples. 

 Should we, therefore, be unprepared some day to find that the same 

 prudent foresight has induced them to utilize for posterity the 

 abrading action of drift-sand, by planting stones in places where they 

 might in time be brought to something approaching the desired shape. 



Before leaving the consideration of our past year's work, I must be 

 allowed to express my deep sense of the great advantage we enjoy in 

 the presence among us of the head quarters of the' Institute and 

 Geological Survey, and of the admirable Museum formed under their 

 auspices. It will be our own fault, and a matter of grave reproach to 

 us, if, with these aids, we do not attain to a foremost place among our 



