PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE OF CANTERBURY. 



First Meeting. March 2, 1870. 

 The Rev. Canon Wilson in the chair. 



The following new members were elected : — H. W. Williams, 

 R. H. Rhodes, H. R. Webbe, T. J. Curtis, and Rev. W. C. Harris. 



Mr. Fraser drew attention to a paragraph in the " Athenseum," of 

 date 28th September, 1869, describing as a probable novelty, an ai-range- 

 ment of varioiisly coloui-ed stereoscopic slides, by which the colours were 

 blended in the common object. He exliibited a slide of the kind 

 described which had been in his possession for some years, and pointed 

 out that the contrivance might be employed as a sort of ophthalmometer, 

 for testing the comparative strength of the eyes, which were not always 

 of equal power. 



Dr. Powell exhibited a Microspectroscope, — an addition to the 

 mici'oscope of five prisms for the refraction of light, — and showed the 

 dark bands characteristic of blood, aniline, and permanganate of potash. 



Second Meeting. April 6, 1870. 

 Dr. Haast, F.R.S., President, in the chaii\ 



Mr. Alfred Cox was elected a member of the Institute. 



Mr. Andrew Duncan, in the absence of Mr. Wilkin, gave in the 

 Interim Report of the Grass Committee. The report stated that the 

 committee found great difiiculty in obtaining information, from the back- 

 wardness of the gentlemen to whom they wrote, in sending replies. 

 A sketch of the schedule which they sent with the letters of enquiry 

 was presented, along with the names of thirty-three sjoecies of native 

 grasses. Of these it appeared that only two were known to Mr. Colenso, 

 an accomplished botanist, as belonging to the North Island. 



The Reporter proposed that the committee should be re-appointed, 

 because considerable time must necessarily elapse before they would be 

 in a position to communicate much definite information. 



