396 Froceed'mgs. 



cost, say, from £2,000 to £3,000 ; and I would farther invite others of our 

 members to contribute various practical detailed plans by which the necessary 

 amount might be raised. That it can be done I am convinced, if we only go 

 earnestly and determinedly about it. We have, in fact, only to raise £1,000 

 in cash in order to obtain the remaining £2,000 at £120 per annum of 

 interest, which, I believe, we could easily realize from rents of class rooms, 

 lecture rooms, and proceeds of lectui'es, without interfering with the ordinary 

 revenue of the society. Or we might, by combining with some kindx-ed 

 institution and uniting our forces, raise the entire sum required. I press this 

 earnestly on your attention, for I believe that the present state of our Library 

 and Museum has been a great hindrance to us in the past, and that a better 

 state of these would be an immense impetus to us for the future. 



In connection with the past of our own and kindred societies, permit me 

 to invite your attention to the fifth volume of the Transactions and Proceedings 

 pf the New Zealand Institute, just published. In quantity and in quality it 

 is equal, if not superior, to its predecessors, although I venture to think that it 

 might be somewhat abridged without loss to science or loss of interest to 

 general readers. There are eighteen papers on miscellaneous subjects, the first 

 of which, on " The Life and Times of Te Rauperaha," will be found exceedingly 

 interesting. There are nineteen zoological papers, some of them, in regard to 

 the birds of New Zealand, of special interest ; thirteen botanical papera, in 

 which our worthy secretary stands pre-eminent ; five chemical papers, all by 

 Mr. Skey, of the Wellington Laboratory ; and two geological papers, besides a 

 summary of the pi'oceedings of the various affiliated societies. It strikes me 

 that chemistry and geology are, though ably, not so extensively represented as 

 they might be if the votai'ies of these respective branches of science were to 

 favour us with their contributions. And the absence of geographical and 

 biological papers seems to me somewhat remai^kable. The absence of biological 

 papers may, no doubt, be fairly attributed to the hesitation which thinkers and 

 observers on such subjects must naturally have in laying their thoughts and 

 observations before the public in the present unsettled state of that branch of 

 science ; and yet that is just the state in which stray thoughts and observations 

 may prove to be of the greatest value. The absence of geographical papers is 

 less easily accounted for ; for if there be one branch of elementary knowledge 

 more than another in which we are defective in New Zealand, it is that of the 

 geographical knowledge of our own colony. We have two, I think, small 

 school books purporting to be geographies of New Zealand, but both miserably 

 defective even where not positively erroneous. Our childi-en are drilled into 

 British geography rather than into that of their own native country. New 

 Zealand. We find our newspaper editors constantly displaying tlie grossest 

 ignorance of the geography of the colony, and they have no reliable book of 



