REVIEW.

Evening Star, Issue 4199, 11 August 1876, Page 4

REVIEW.

Ttdniactions and Proceedings' the A Zealand Institute 1575. Vol. VIII. Baited and published ixnder the authority of the Board of Governors of the Institute. Although the New Zealand Institute has failed ■fco promote the pursuit of science and 4tt ia the Colony to the extent which its founders fondly anticipated, it is still accomplishing an extremely useful work. The monthly meetings of the affiliated bodies tr« seldom edifying; and the sparse attenfouoe at them show how few of the numerous members whose names are upon {fae rolls take an active interest in the affairs of the Institute. iS' or are the limited dimensions of these gatherings to be. wondered at. Commonly, but one. or two persons in the room, they being professional Scientists, possess any real knowledge of wienoe, and while the less modest of the fenudnder of the assemblage, display no relaotanes in propounding the crude notions whish they have formed from the perusal of popular treatise*, their flowing utterances fre more pleasing to themselves than to fttnb hearers. ..While, however, the ceseafhm of fee meeting* of the Institute weald, Lfeis sense, be little publio less, the Mate, nevertheless, servos as a kind of reservoir into whish all the stray observations that are made upon the natural" phenomena of the Colony, and which might otherwise be left unreeorded, find their, wav, ’and added to t e methodical investigations «>f the more diligent of the' students of physical science in Slew Zealand, the results of whose researches, in the absence of a suitable local medium, would probably be. related to some association in Great Britian, form a collec tion of facts of the utmost The Transactions of the New Zealand Institute” can hold its own with the Transactions of any scientific body in the Australian Colonies ; and is spoken hi. with approbation by scientific men of eminence in Europe. The papers noticed there, too, are occasionally those which have been least regarded in the Colony. The researches of Sir T. E. Cheeseman, of Auckland, upon the Now Zealand orchids, for example; have been •ommended by so high an authority as Oarwin ; and the Institute consequently offerfo the true student of Nature, , who does not pnrane science for the sake of monej ke tan gain from, it in its annual volume, a means of making the fruits of his research e c known to a far wider circlo than he can ad Areas in. Now Zealand, and where his labors

are likely te b» appraised at thoir real ralne. Jt appears from the 'seventh annual report •f the Beard of GoTernors that on the lltli October, 1875, the : Institute numbered 70/ members, including 19 honorary, of whioh Otago furnished 168. This miwter roll did ftot contain the names of the members of 111* V\ astland Institute and the Hawke's Bay philosophical. Institute, which hare bcni wsently affiliated, and whose mombsrs' listtrill appear in the next" volume. The funds «f the Institute are likewise in a flourishing ••Edition, the : Treasurer's aooonnts showing abalanoe of lAS ISs lid to credit, notwithstanding that: they have had. to bear the Seoial burthen of reprinting-ibe first volume the Transactions, which entailed an outlay of L 623. A. favorable . report is made upon the state; of the Colon'al Museum, which is under the charge of the Institute, but as the benefits of that establishment are practically monopolised by tho City of Wellington, -[it* prosperity or de'eaflonoe concerns tho inhabitants of this pait of the Colony but .little. Turning'to the work under review? it contains a mass of

papers pf average .merit,, but nothing of striking impopjtanee, ' .The place of honor>< ii WorfcaUy allotted"to a. contribution.' from MY" Wi S. Vaux, MM. of. Balliel College, Qk-' ford, : updu;."The. of the Maori Races." This dissertation is distinguished by* accurate aad : thorough knowledge- of: the subjeot about ,-,wbioh it treats, • and by closeness of- ;reasoning. M r Vnax pursues his —inquiry by three IfHes "'of-''research: ■{!) '■ Maori traditions ; (2) The Ethnological connection- andaffiniiieS 1 ;-between-the .'.Maoris and othor peoples'; (3). the philological ru'atious of the Maori language ; and deduces tho conclusion thai the native homo of the Maori ia Central Asia, whence, at some remote period, two Wyes o£ emigration issued, one findrog its course along the great river highway of the Yang tze'Xiang, and there/separating into two- divisions, the main division ultimately populating :the Ladr/mes,;'• r .p;iroljna,' .' and ftadach Dhain, and perhaps reaching as far as the Sandwich Islands, while the. smaller division, emergrd from the river of Canton and sent.a stream of population■ over the Boathern and eastern groups of Polynesia, including New Zealand; The other wave of emigration'pa'sied from Central Asia by the lines of the great rivers 'BrAbamapootra, IrawaddyYand Mcnaiiij'thus impinging on ljheoofsan.attheßouth-east.end of the Bay. of' Bengal andJUulf pf Sfani,' and afterwards Bprtftding.o.veEjt.he.connti'iea. now .inhabited" by the Malays, -:Mr Vaux thus, d.i.ftors. from jir J. T. Thomson, who, basing a philological argument upriri the viewi enunciated by. the late Mr Logan,'' author, of the ''Uournal of: the. Indian Archipelago/' has contended that:,the Maoris,, are of Ma'ay origin. The matter, jhowever, is still in the controversial stage. Another paper bearing O'iestion, • although not written Ttfiikh ifoat object, is furnished by the Rev. J. T. H. Wohlers, of Roapuke, who, in contißnation of an..essay"printed in the 7th volume of tlie ''"Transactionf," contributes a number of interesting Maori iegeadßi- -Tbeso . stories are not only curious in themselves; but are of high BOientilio value J : ahd-thi9 services oi a competent Maori scholar in this respect are the more worthy of recognition because it already become extremely difScttit, and in a few years hence will be impossible, to- get these oral traditions unmixed with European ideas ; and when once adulterated in this "way their value will be gone. The; inevitable jaoa, of course, occupies a large f pace in the volume. Quantities of legs and skulls, more er less broken, have been exhumed from "kitchen "middens ;" flint storiee, poliahed atid unpolished, have been collected in abundance^ arid theorising as to the time if hen the'moa became extinct goes on as biiskly as .ever. Tbe 1 as;'reiralt of these labors'sefema decidedly;'tq favor the view originally entertained 1 , namely, that the «xtinot\oa rof; tho, moa, happened recently. Th& arguments'," hitherto, ; bave been awstly <ife'a. character• 'arid' it is therefore pleasant to get hold of suoh a piece of positive evidence as ia supylidd ftra letter from Mx Join.Wliito,.ktcJy a at the Bay of Islands, Vho perhaps p-o»Rc»8«a a more minute ledg'a of' Mjasri-'/castoms and traditions than any European living. Tl.i« £;entl«man describes, from information obtained from JCative iionrOe3, v 4ha hab.taof tho moa, and Jjovr it was •xiught,' in amanner irh job provss the 'Natives of the .North Island .to haye , be*ri'i%tia>*t<»ly acquainted with the bird, Jndgo"Maidng, another '-'Maori doctor" of repute, likewise testifies to the jreoent. existence of tb* moa. Altoquestion must ba regarded as •igattled/i a-'d, a decision given against I)r '.'Jstaast: wixo-.jftrst. gtarted the Moa hunter Cheery, but bia promulgation of that has rosulted b6n'cfjciaily'-'by< irEirnu&ti'ttg The zoological section •pf the " Transactions" coafcains aeyeral jn-

teresting papers. Captain Htttton is continuing his ravestigationsintothe ichthyology of Z w Zealand, and is thereby not only rendering valuable service to natural science in its practical application, but is also adding to b.13 high scientific reputation. Profesior Ooughtrey contributes "Notes on New Zealand Hydroida" as a supplement to a previous paper on the same bubieet. Dr L'oughtroy has here opened up an almost new field of research, a3 far as New Zealand is concerned ; but wo hope he does not intend to drop his researches mto the anatomy of the raoa, of which ho gave us .i foretaste in volume 7. The entomology of the country, which has hitherto been left to the care of two or three observers, who have worked at it in a desultory fashion, has now fallen into vigorous hands. There is an excellent article by Mr T. Bates, F.L.S., the celebrated naturalist, describing new genera and species of Hiterom-ra; which is well supported by Captain Brown's notes on the Auckland cckoptera (alias beetles). A. long-winded dissertation, Avith very little in it, on the habits of the trap-door spider, is furnished by Mr K. Gillie*, of Duaedin. Mr T. F. Cheeaeman details the results of his explorations for molluaca in Auckland harbor; and if other malocologists would furnish menographs of a similar kind, the malacology, of New Zealand might bo put on something like a sound basis, although our mollusean catalogues roust needs be incomplete until our coasts have been thoroughly dredged. The most: important of tho geological papers is Captain's Hutton's essay " n ike cause of v hr form or great extension of the glaciers in New Zealand, ' in which ho endeavors to prove that the great size which these glaciers or.ee attained was due

to the elevation of the laud above its present I level. Our Colonial geologists, it may be ' observed, have pretty well reached the con- | elusion that while the glaciers of New i Zealand, extensive as they are, were j formerly of far greater magnitude, the country was never subjected to anything corresponding with the glacier epoch of the Northern Hemisphere. Mr J. 0. Crawford, F.G.S., whost brain teems with geological theories, propounds the motion, in a paper entitled " The Old Lake system of New Zealand," that the vast pumice tracts in the •Taupo district of the North Island once formed the bed of a lake; while he further considers that in ancient times a lake overspread what is now the Canterbury plains. The same -gentleman, writing "On the I.jneous Rocks of the Province of Wellington," combats A ! r C. W. PurneU's views as to the origin of the pumice beds in the valley of tho Wanaanui. Tbe geology of the 'Vanganui dietriot, although of tho highest importance to a proper comprehension of. tho gr-ology of the North Island, is still in an undetermined stste, which is not quite creditable to tho industry of the local observers. There aro sundry other articles deserving of notice, but to which we are unable to make particular reference for want of space. Mr Blair's papers on " The building Materials of Otago" appears amongst the miscellaneous contributions ; ami Otago, altogether, shows Tory fairly in tho volume.