AN OBSERVATORY FOR NEW ZEALAND. 251 
1870, says: “It is less than twenty-five years since the first re- 
_fracting telescope, exceeding those of a portable size, was im- 
ported into the United States, and the introduction of meridional 
instruments of a large class is of still more recent date.” Yet 
we have seen that at the present time the same country boasts 
not less than twelve observatories. Some of these are probably 
not by any means completely equipped, but others are of the 
first rank. Nor is it to be expected that here a perfect institu- 
tion could at once be called into existence, but a beginning 
might be made; at the same time every instrument purchased 
should be sufficiently good to allow of thoroughly reliable work 
being done with it. The instruments which are absolutely indis- 
pensable in an observatory are a transit circle and a good clock, 
but an equatorial and a second clock are only a degree less 
essential. Probably for £1600 all of these instruments could be 
purchased, together with those which would be required for 
systematic magnetic observations (for these latter could be con- 
veniently made at an astronomical observatory, and would be 
of great value). Nor would the cost of the necessary buildings 
be at all great, as only four or five rooms would be necessary ; 
but they would have to be substantially built, and above all the 
foundations of the piers for the instruments would have to be 
very carefully attended to. The whole cost, then, of equipping 
an observatory sufficiently well to enable it to do good work 
would be comparatively trifling, and it will not be to our credit 
if we allow ourselves to lie under the reproach of being behind 
the other British Colonies in this respect, and even behind the 
semi-barbarous countries of South America. 
PROOFS OF THE SUBSIDENCE OF A SOUTH- 
PiaeN CONTINENT DURING RECENT GEOLO- 
ec Aal EPOCHS. 
*BY M. EMILE BLANCHARD. 
(Read before 1’Academie des Sciences, Paris, 13th Feb., 1882.) 
During last century geographers and navigators were con- 
vinced of the existence of a continental region in the Southern 
Hemisphere, which extended between Australia and America. 
It was believed that the existence of this continent was indispen- 
sable to the equilibrium of the globe. When on the evening of 
7th October, 1769, Captain Cook cast anchor in a bay of that 
land which had been seen by the Dutchman, Abel Tasman, one 
hundred and twenty-seven years before, the commander, his staff 
of officers, the naturalists Banks and Solander, and the astrono- 
mer Charles Green, standing on the deck of the celebrated ship 
“Endeavour,” all agitated by surprise and uncertainty, flattered 
* Abstract by the author in ‘‘ Comptes Rendus,” 
