130 Dr Lauder Lindsay on the Place and Power of 
if resting on no better basis than that described to me by the 
local authorities. 
Museum of Local Natural History. 
Having indicated, by a few illustrations, what fruits may be 
expected from a judicious cultivation or promotion of the study 
of the Natural Sciences,—how and to what extent these sciences, if 
rightly applied, may aid materially in the advancement of the 
State,—let me consider, in the second place, the most legitimate 
means—the best, the cheapest, and easiest methods of rendering 
these sciences available to the citizens at large, as well as of 
applying them to the specific requirements of Government or of indi- 
vidual settlers. The most obvious and easy means of recognising 
the place and power of natural history in your province, and of 
developing its applications to practical life, is the establishment 
of a Museum of Local or Provincial Natural History, or a collec- 
tion of the products of this province, with such products only 
of other countries as will enable you to understand and appre- 
ciate the true position and value of the economical resources of 
your own province. Let such a Museum be essentially a collec- 
tion of the rocks, minerals, plants, and animals of Otago;* and 
let it possess an attached Library, containing such works on the 
natural history of Otago or of New Zealand, or such general 
works on natural history, as will enable the student duly to learn 
the lessons which the specimens displayed in the Museum-cases 
are ready to teach him. Of such a library there is great want, 
and of such works there is an astonishing dearth. I have not 
heard, for instance, of any person or corporation in the province 
possessing a copy of Dr Hooker’s work on the “ Flora of New 
Zealand,” the most complete work on the subject yet published. I 
am told that the expense of such a work prevents its purchase by 
individuals; and this perhaps is a valid excuse for individuals. 
But, as a work of reference, it ought undoubtedly to have a place 
in some of your public libraries, Moreover, I know that the first 
British authorities in Botany—Sir William Hooker, and _ his 
equally distinguished son, Dr Joseph Hooker,—of Kew—are 
extremely desirous of issuing cheap Colonial Botanical Manuals, 
were there any demand for such works. Show that you desire 
* T was, while in Otago, referred for the only good collections of Otago rocks, 
fossils, and minerals, to two private geologists at Wellington, and of Otago 
plants to a lady at Sydney; and I had the opportunity of examining a better — 
suite of illustrations of New Zealand geology and mineralogy in Sydney (inthe — 
niagnificent collection of the Rev. W. B. Clarke, the Government geologist of 
New South Wales) than in New Zealand itself! This is a state of things 
discreditable in the extreme to New Zealand generally, as well as to its 
respective provinces ! | 
