﻿Anniversary Address. 5 



satisfaction from witnessing tlie efforts made at all the principal centres of 

 population. Each province has its own peculiar advantages ; but on this 

 occasion I wish to allude especially to that garden which forms an essential 

 adjunct to our Institute. It is now a little more than a year since the 

 Botanic Reserve was placed under the management of the Board of Governors, 

 and there is good reason to be satisfied with the advance already secured. 

 Not only has the luxury of a pleasant recreation ground been conferred on 

 the inhabitants of Wellington, and on the numerous visitors who reside here 

 during the sessions of the Colonial Parliament, but a field has also been 

 provided for interesting experiments in practical botany. The preservation 

 of the beautiful patches of native forest, which still survive in the ravines, 

 and the affixing the names of the various trees and shrubs, have created, at 

 a small expense, a Botanic Garden of the most useful kind. "Visitors are thus 

 enabled to render themselves familiar with the indigenous vegetation of this 

 country, with its scientific classification, and with the beauty and value of 

 the flora of this and of other lands. 



CHEMISTBY. 



In the department of Chemistry, nearly all the papers are by Mr. Skey, 

 the Analyst to the Geological Survey of New Zealand ; and the Institute is 

 fortunate in possessing among its members a gentleman so well qualified to 

 handle this branch of science. 



GEOLOGY. 



We must all deplore the loss by drowning, while in the zealous discharge 

 of his duty, of another officer of the Government Survey — Mi". E. H. Davis — 

 to whom our Transactions owe several instructive geological papers. 



On the above, and on a variety of miscellaneous subjects, we have a 

 number of interesting contributions by Dr. Hector, Dr. Haast, Mr. Travel's, 

 Captain Hutton, and others of our leading associates. The last, but by no 

 means the least important paper in the third volume of our Transactions is 

 the opportune lecture, by Mr. Justice Chapman, on the " Political Economy 

 of Hallways," which vidll excite the more interest from the fact that the 

 Colony is now about to undertake extensive public works, such as those of 

 which the learned Judge has so ably treated. 



On the whole, it may be safely affirmed that the Institute has no reason 

 to be dissatisfied with the amount of work which it has accomplished during 

 the first three years of its existence ; a ad if we look to the large accession to 

 its numbers during the past year, and to the interest which its labours have 

 excited, alike in this and in the neighbouring colonies and in the mother 

 country, we may confidently regard the progress already made as only the 

 germ and infant promise of a far greater development and success in the 

 future. 



