﻿AUCKLAND INSTITUTE 



First Meeting. 29i;A May, 1871. 



His Honour T. B. Gillies in tlie chair. 



A letter explaining the cause of absence of the President was read, by the 

 Secretary. 



New members. — C. Mellsop, F. Dawson, M.R.C.S., "William Atkin. 

 The Chairman then read the Pi'esident's opening 



ADDRESS. 



At the commencement of a new season it seems incumbent on the occupant 

 of this seat to open the proceedings by some slight review of the progress 

 which has been made in carrying out the objects to which this Institute and 

 its allied societies in New Zealand are specially devoted, and of the prospect 

 which lies before it of continuing and extending the course of usefulness in 

 which it has made so hopeful and creditable a commencement. I find, from 

 the preamble of the Act under which the Institute is constituted, that 

 its objects, in addition to the establishment of a public museum, labora- 

 tory, and public library, are " to promote the general study and cultivation of 

 the various branches and departments of art, science, literature, and philosophy." 



Amongst the many subjects which this comprehensive definition embraces, 

 the development of the natural history of these islands, in its various branches, 

 has necessarily taken the foremost place. 



The most natural and obvious work of the colonist is to explore the country 

 of his adoption, to search out its resources, to investigate its peculiarities, to 

 realise its possessions, and to note its wants : and if here and there one, to the 

 ordinary energies of the eai-ly settler, adds the zeal and knowledge of a scien- 

 tific explorer, the field of investigation is to such an one only enlarged and its 

 interest intensified, but the natural bent and tendency of his researches will 

 probably remain the same. 



In the early stages of every society the practical must always preponderate 

 over the speculative, and man has still left in him so much of the instinct of 

 the gregarious animal that, whatever the previous habits and structure of his 

 mind may have been, the early colonist inevitably either becomes entraine by 

 the materialistic tendencies around him, or abandons the colony in disgust. 



