86 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



simplest agencies that are at work around us. How it has so simplified 

 the teaching of the laws that order the conversion of internal motions 

 of bodies into phases which represent light, heat, electricity, is abundantly 

 proved by the facility with which the mechanicians are every day 

 snatching the protean forms of energy for the service of man with 

 increasing economy. These great strides which have been made in 

 physical science have not as yet incited much original work in this 

 colony. But now that physical laboratories are established in some 

 degree at the various college centres, we will be expected, ere long, to 

 contribute our mite to the vast store. In practical works ot physical 

 research we miss in New Zealand the stimulus the sister colonies 

 receive from their first-class observatories, supplied with all the most 

 modern instruments of research, wielded by such distinguished astro- 

 nomers as Ellery, Russell, and Todd, whose discoveries secure renown 

 for their separate colonies. I am quite prepared to admit that the 

 reduplication of observatories in about the same latitude, merely for the 

 study of the heavenly bodies, would be rather a matter of scientific 

 luxury. The few degrees of additional elevation of the South Polar 

 region which would be gained by an observatory situated even in the 

 extreme south of New Zealand could hardly be expected to disclose 

 phenomena that would escape the vigilance of the Melbourne obser- 

 vatory. But star gazing is only one branch of the routine work of an 

 observatory. It is true we have a moderate but efficient observatory 

 establishment in New Zealand sufficient for distributing correct mean 

 time, and that our meridian distance from Greenwich has been 

 satisfactorily determined by telegraph ; also, thanks to the energy and 

 skill of the Survey Department, despite most formidable natural 

 obstructions, the major triangulation and meridian circuits have 

 established the basis of our land survey maps on a satisfactory footing, 

 so that the sub-divisions of the land for settlement and the adoption 

 and blending of the excellent work done by the Provincial Governments 

 of the colony is being rapidly overtaken. Further, I have already 

 recalled how much the colony is indebted to the Mother Country for 

 the completeness and detail of the coastal and harbour charts. B\it 

 there is much work that should be controlled by a physical observatory 

 that is really urgently required. I may give a few illustrations. The 

 tidal movements round the coast are still imperfectly ascertained, and 

 the causes of their irregular variation can never be understood until 

 we have a synchronous system of tide meters, and a more widely 

 extended series of deep-sea soundings. Excepting the Challenger 

 soundings on the line of the Sydney cable, and a few casts taken by the 

 United State ship "Enterprise," the depths of the ocean surrounding 

 New Zealand have not been ascertained with that accuracy which many 

 interesting problems in physical geography and geology demand. It is 

 supposed to be the culmination of a great submarine plateau ; but how 

 far that plateau extends, connecting the southern islands towards the 

 great Antarctic land, and how far to the eastward, is still an unsolved 

 question. Then, again, the direction and intensity of the magnetic 

 currents in and around New Zealand require further close investigation, 

 which can only be controlled from an observatory. Even in the 

 matter of secular changes in the variation of the compass we find that 

 the marine charts instruct that an allowance of increased easterly 

 variation of 2 min. per annum must be made, and as this has now 



