142 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
for technical education. In answer to Mr. Hogben, he under- 
stood Mr. Purnell to propose that boys should receive rudimentary 
general education before their technical work. The question, 
«What shall we do with our sons ?” had to be faced. They could 
not all goto Lincoln. At present very few would tackle trade ; 
they didn’t like it. They would rather become teachers, clerks, 
or lawyers. He could not agree with Dr. Bakewell; for the town 
population of New Zealand was largely engaged in manufacture. 
Professor Hutton deprecated rash interference with existing 
methods. Ifthe policy of the Board of Governors were examined, 
it would be found to have closely followed that pursued in England. 
Drawing was the first requisite, and the School of Art was the 
most creditable institution in the colonies. It would be a pity to 
cripple it. Let the School of Art be firmly established, and then 
when more money was available other objects could be pursued. 
Then there would be plenty of time to consider what they should 
do. 
Mr. Murphy urged the importance of teaching agriculture in 
the primary schools. Were this done they would not find fifty-six 
applicants for a single clerkship, as had lately happened. There 
was room for 50 pupils at Lincoln College, yet it only contained 
30. New Zealand would be something more than an agricultural 
country, for already her implements, coaches, and woollens beat 
those imported. 
Messrs. Blair and Purnell briefly replied to their critics, the 
latter remarking that he would venture to prophesy that there 
would soon be a great outcry against the expenditure on High 
Schools and Colleges, which were practically not open to the 
working classes. ! 
The Chairman announced that next meeting a paper would be 
read on the Electric Light. 
Christchurch, May ist, 1884.—R. W. Fereday, Esq., President, 
in the chair. 
New Members—Messrs. Ringwood and E. McConnell. 
The President announced that Dr. R. von Lendenfeld had 
resigned his position as member of the Council, owing to his re- 
moval to Sydney, and that Professor J. von Haast had been 
appointed by the Council to fill the vacancy. 
Papers—Mr. Ringwood read a paper on “Red Sunsets” in 
which he stated that the ‘‘ after glow” observed at sunset during 
the past seven months was due to the presence of volcanic dust 
in the upper regions of the atmosphere. This dust had been pro- 
jected into the atmosphere by the volcanic eruption at the Island 
of Krakatoa, though perhaps the remarkable sunsets observed in 
England sooner than at other parts ot Europe may have been due 
to dust from an eruption in the Alaska group of islands. He 
traced the first appearance of the remarkable sunsets from Kraka- 
toa, to the Seychelles, Gold Coast, Brazil &c. showing that the 
dust cloud when projected into the higher strata of the atmosphere 
had been left behind by the rotatory motion of the earth and hence 
appeared to have travelled westward at a mean velocity of 87 
miles per hour. Spectrum analysis had shown that the “ after 
glow’’ was due to the presence of dust in the atmosphere, not to 
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