﻿Wellington Philosophical Society. 377 



Board of Governors for the ensuing year, in accordance with chiuse 7 of the 

 ISTew Zealand Institute Act. 



Presentation of books from Harvard College, U.S.A., the Smithsonian 

 Institution, U.S.A., the Flax Commissioners, and Mr. Crompton, were placed 

 on the table. 



1. The President read the following extract from, a letter addressed to Dr. 

 Hector by Professor Agassiz, which accompanied the presentations from 

 Harvard College. 



" I have just received the diploma of memberahip of the New Zealand 

 Institute, which you have forwai'ded to me. Please present my thanks to your 

 learned Society for this distinction. I have been more delighted in receiving 

 it than I can express. Certainly, when remembering the recent date of the 

 colonization of New Zealand, there can be no more surpiising evidence of the 

 rapid progress of modern civilization than the publication of the Transactions 

 of your Institute. Not that the printing of a book in any part of the world 

 is now-a-days any marked event, but the volume before me is more instructive, 

 and better put together, than the proceedings of most learned societies of a 

 long standing. I have requested my friend, Mr. T. G. Cary, who takes care 

 of the aflEairs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, to forward 

 to you a series of the publications of our Institxition ; and I would now take 

 the liberty of requesting you to send me also the first and second volumes of 

 your Transactions and Proceedmgs. With our volumes you will also receive 

 a set for each of your associated societies, which I beg you to forward. Allow 

 me also to request you to send me whatever specimens of living and fossil 

 animals you can spare, and to let me know what I could send you in return. 

 I have a series of casts of Mastodon heads, of different ages, which might be 

 interesting, and can offer any of the natural productions of North America you 

 may wish, or at least procure them shortly if they are not at hand. It is my 

 earnest desire to secure for our Museum as complete a representation of the 

 living and extinct fauna of New Zealand as possible, before the progress of 

 your settlement has made it impossible to bring together complete collections 

 of the original fauna of your islands. I would particularly value specimens 

 of all the species described in your Proceedings. I need scarcely add that 

 specimens of the fishes described and figured by you would have a special 

 interest for me. I shall direct my assistants in the different departments of 

 the Museum to write to members of your Institute who work in the same 

 field, and beg you may secxire for them a friendly response." 



2. "Notes on the Practice of Out-door Photography," by "W". T. L. Travers, 

 F.L.S. (See Transactions, p. 100.) 



3. " On the Alkalinity or Acidity of certain Salts and Minerals, as indi- 



