NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 650, 25 October 1851, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY.

A meeting of the New Zealand Society was held in the Council Chamber on Wednesday evening, the 22nd inst., his Excellency Sir George Grey presided. The attendance of members was quite as numerous as on the last occasion. The following gentlemen were elected members :—Mr. J. Telford, Dr. Logan, R. N., Mr. J. Varnham and Mr. P. M. Hervey. Dr. Mantell, F.R.S. and Professor Owen, F.R.S., were also unanimously elected honorary members of the Society. The following donations to the library and museum were announced by the Secretary : Several pamphlets and a copy of Dr. Mantell’s Wonders of Geology, by Mr. W. Mantell; specimens of fossils, &c., by Mr. W. Lyon; specimens of minerals from South Australia, by Mr. J. H. Wallace; specimens of minerals from South Australia and fossil shells from Wairarapa, by Mr. S. E. Grimstone : two specimens of the Ornithorhyncus paradoxus from Bathurst,New South Wales, by Mr. E. Catchpool; and specimens of the flax cotton in various stages of preparation, by Mr. V. Smith. Three quarto volumes of Magnetical observations were deposited in the library of the Society by order of his Excellency. A paper on the comparative strength of New Zealand and Australian woods, by Mr. Carter, was read by Mr. Fitzherbert, in which the details were given of several interesting experiments the results of which were not unfavourable to the woods of New Zealand. A paper was also read by Mr. Mantell on the various deposits in which the bones of the Dinornis and kindred genera have been discovered. A very fine living specimen of the Kakapo (StrygopsJ of New Zealand, from the South extremity of the Middle Island, was also exhibited by the President of the Society.