2 TlMEHRI. 
in the same way ; and on smaller and yet more forgotten 
occasions various scientific exploring expeditions have 
travelled through the land. Meanwhile our Society has 
at various times been the means of publishing infor- 
mation about the colony by gathering its products 
together at Exhibitions, by causing essays to be written 
on various themes, by discussing matters of local interest 
at its meetings — though this it has done far too 
seldom, — and by publishing pamphlets written by its 
more technical or learned members. Yet how many of 
us know anything of the results of all this enterprise ? 
Or where could any one of us, regretting his ignorance 
of such matters, turn and find a record of what has 
been done in this way ? 
Having led up to these questions, which it will be ob- 
vious that we ask with just that feeling of pleasure, so 
irritating to the questioned, which is the reward of those 
who ask questions to which they feel no satisfactory 
answer can possibly be given, we may at once state that 
our purpose is to put on record in future all information 
of the kind indicated above, in a form which, perhaps 
with far too great conceit, we flatter ourselves will be 
permanent ; and as regards the past, we propose to 
rescue and store up, as fast as time and opportunity 
allow, so much of the half or wholly forgotten collect- 
ed facts as may yet be rescued. Moreover, we feel 
sure that the very fact of the existence of this means 
of permanent record will encourage those who would 
not gather and give information which they know 
was only to be lost, to set to work and increase the 
store of our knowledge of the colony. And to this end 
