$6 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



Secretary: Mr. A. Hamilton. Hon. Treasurer: Mr. E. Melland. 

 Council: Professors Parker, FR.S., and Scott, M.D., Drs. Hocken, 

 F.L.S., and de Zouche, Messrs. P. R, Chapman, D. Petrie, M.A , and 

 Geo. M. Thomson, F.L.S. Auditor : Mr. D. Brent, M.A. 



Mr. D. Brent mentioned that the Otago Institute had now come 

 of age — that was to say, it was just 21 years old. On July 3, 

 1869, Mr. J. S. Webb, who took a very active part in the foundation 

 of the institute, convened a meeting in the long room of the Athenamm 

 Hall, at which Dr. Hocken was also pi'eaent. About three weeks after- 

 wards a meeting was held in the Provincial Council library, at which 

 the Otago Institute was formally constituted. A list of the original 

 members showed 80 names, and on looking over it he was surprised to 

 find that 20 of them still belonged to the institute. They were : — 

 Messrs. C. W. Adams, C. M. Barr, A. Bathgate, L. O. Beal, A. 

 Beverly, D. Brent, Robert Chapman, W. Fraser (Eavnscleugh), Dr. 

 Hocken, James M'Kerrow, W. Martin (Green Island) A. C. Purdie, 

 B. C. Quick, James Rattray, Hon. W. H. Reynolds, G. G. Russell, 

 H. Skey, and Sir R. Stout. Others had left the colony, but the 

 following original members had since passed away : — Messrs. W. 

 Arthur, Dr. Borrows, R. Gillies, S. Hawthorne, W. Langlands, J. 

 Macandrew, W. D. Murison, A. C. Strode, and J. T. Thomson. Judge 

 Ward presided at the meeting to which he had just made reference, 

 and Messrs. J. S. Webb and Dr. Hocken were the first joint secretaries. 



WELLINGTON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



Wellington, 23rd July, 1890.— Charles Hulke, F.C.S., President, 

 in the chair. 



New Member. — Mr. J. W. Poynton. 



Papers. — (1) " Curiosities of Polynesian Speech," by E. Tregear, 

 F.R.G.S. Mr. Tregear said that having been for some years employed 

 in the comparative study of the Polynesian dialects, he had devoted 

 himself to the task of collating different vocabularies and putting them 

 into a position wherein they could be easily examined. The Maori 

 language was a branch of a great family of human speech, and any 

 effort made to understand it in its original purity would fail if it was 

 studied without the light thrown upon it by the sister dialects. In 

 many of the islands inhabited by the fair Polynesians letters had been 

 lost from their alphabets, and the work of an investigator was cramped 

 if he had not the time or energy to accumulate the material at present 

 lying in a chaotic state. His Comparative Dictionary was an 

 endeavour to produce a work tending to simplify this labour, and to 

 allow a student to perceive at a glance what words or probable words 

 were equivalent to those in use in New Zealand. Any attempt to 

 compare the Polynesian language with the speech of peoples dwelling on 

 the great continents would also be simplified by the existence of such a 

 handbook. During the course of his investigations he had searched 

 through hundreds of old poems, legends, (fee, and had compared the 

 mythologies, genealogies, (fee, of celebrated deities, and heroes, as given 

 in New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, Rtratonga, the Marquesas, 



