﻿Wellinr/ton Pldlosoijldccd Society. 359 



persons at liome occupying positions of world-wide celebrity in the realm of 

 science. 



In the department of Botany the great majority of papers published 

 in the Transactions of the Institute are contributed by that indefatigable 

 botanist, Mr. Kirk. Amongst these pai^ers are carefully prepared lists of the 

 remaining native and of the introduced plants observed by him in various 

 localities in the Auckland province — lists which, in the future, will be of very 

 great value in regard to that most interesting biological inquiry, the " replace- 

 ment of species." It would be well if all those who have the opportunities of 

 doing so would from time to time collect the Flora, both native and introduced, 

 over extended areas in the neighbourhood of all our centres of population, in 

 order that, by means of successive comparisons, we might be able to arrive at 

 some idea of the rate at which this process is going on. In few countries, if 

 indeed in any, do the means of obtaining reliable information upon this 

 important subject exist to a greater extent than in New Zealand ; and it will 

 undoubtedly be a matter of reproach hereafter if we neglect the opportunities 

 now afforded to us of accumulating facts which will tend, when carefully 

 examined and collated, to elucidate points of importance at present buried in 

 obscurity. I had occasion to observe, during a recent visit to some of the 

 alpine regions of the Nelson province, the enormously increasing destruction 

 of the native alpine and sub-alpine Flora, owing, partly to the habit of tiring bush 

 districts, in order to i^eplace the original vegetation by one better suited 

 to pastoral purposes, and partly to the fact that the scanty herbaceous native 

 vegetation was gradually being eaten out by the sheep and cattle, now roaming 

 in large numbers over districts which, less than ten years ago, were practically 

 as little known as the interior of Africa. Indeed, T have no doubt, from the 

 present comparative rarity of many plants which were formerly found in 

 abundance in such districts, that in a few years our only knowledge of them 

 will be derived from the dried specimens in our herbaria. 



Keturning to my special subject, I find that in the department of Chemistry, 

 with one exception, the whole of the papers published in the Transactions have 

 been contributed by Mr. Skey, the diligent and accurate Analyst to the 

 Geological Survey. I have no pretensions to chemical knowledge which 

 would justify me in offering any criticisms on Mr. Skey's labours, but the 

 highly favourable manner in which they have been i*eferred to in works of 

 authority devoted to such subjects, warrants me in believing that the papers in 

 question contain matter of high practical value. If I correctly appreciate the 

 object of several of these papers, as well as of some former papers from the 

 same contributor, they are intended to aid in determining the best mode of 

 economically and efficiently separating gold from the various substances, both 

 earthy and metallic, with which it is usually associated in the gold mines of 



