Philosophical Institute of Canterbury.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 13, 1880, Unnumbered Page

Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. First Meeting. 4th March, 1880. Professor J. Von Haast, Vice-President, in the chair. New Member.—Dr. Guthrie. No papers were read. Second Meeting (Additional) 18th March, 1880. E. Dobson, President, in the chair. New Members.—Professor F. W. Hutton, J. Hay.

Abstract. He reviewed the development of public works in the Provincial District of Canterbury, and with reference to railways discussed the merits of the broad and narrow gauges, expressing himself strongly in favor of the former. He reviewed the methods adopted for ordinary road making, surveys, the proposal for the irrigation of the Canterbury Plains and the conservation of the rivers, the water supply, and the drainage of the towns, street tramways, gas lighting, harbour works, and the adaptation of improved agricultural machinery; and, in his concluding remarks, he pointed out that the successful colonization of New Zealand has been in a great measure due to the scientific element which has pervaded the councils of its rulers. He considered it important that this influence should be recognised, so that in the development of our educational institutions scientific training may receive its full share of attention instead of being simply tolerated or altogether set aside in favour of the study of dead languages. The study of Greek and Latin, however valuable as a system of mental training, as affording models for the expression of thought, and as a foundation for a thorough knowledge of the languages of western Europe, has no further result as a preparation for the active duties of life in that world into which man has been sent “to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow,” nor can it for a moment be seriously contended that the study of the licentious obscenities of the Roman poets can have other than a degrading influence on the minds of our youths entering upon manhood. The excellence of the literature of the Greeks and Romans was the natural reflection of their national greatness. Their orators did not rise to fame through writing nonsense verses, nor did their authors perfect their style by translating unmeaning common-places into the disused languages of fallen nations. They spoke and wrote out of the fullness of their hearts of the stirring events passing before their eyes and of the national life in

which they played no unimportant parts; and hence the nervous simplicity of the language they employed. If the Greeks as poets and historians have left us in their writings models of compositions which have never been surpassed, they were also the greatest sculptors and architects that the world has produced, as well as being consummate geometricians, whilst they also excelled in astronomical and medical science. The heroes of the Iliad, those especially who had been liberally educated, according to the standard of that day, were not mere fighting men, but skilful mechanics, who prided themselves on the excellence of their work, and spared no pains to bring it to perfection. In that episode in the wanderings of Ulysses which is related in the sixth and seventh books of the Odyssey, and which will be always read with delight on account of the exquisite description of the well-ordered home in Corfu, of which the fair Nausicaa was the brightest ornament; Ulysses is described as being struck with admiration at the sight of the well piled entrance to the harbour, and we have allusions to the systematic division of the waste lands amongst the first settlers in Corfu, the erection of houses and temples for the use of the new arrivals, and the supply of water to the port town, whilst Nausicaa extols her father's thoughtfulness for his household in bringing through the domestic offices a stream of water by means of pipes laid from the springs in his allotment. Even Nausicaa herself shows her mechanical instinct when she asks her father for the loan of the mule-cart with “high” wheels, that she may lose no time whilst taking the family washing to the public washing troughs, erected by the municipal authorities near the beach, at some distance from the town. So again, amongst the ruins of Ephesus, recently laid open by the excavations made under the direction of Mr. Wood; whilst we are struck with the richness of the sculptured decorations of the temple of the great Diana of the Ephesians, we are brought face to face with evidences of the attention paid to geodesy as shown by the boundary stones fixing the widths of the roads and watercourses, and by a decree recorded in one of the inscriptions, that in the division of an estate on the foreclosure of a mortgage, roads must be set out to the homesteads, the temples, and the springs of water. What does all this mean, but that science and art went hand in hand in the training of the Greek, and were inseparably connected with every detail of public and private life. And when we turn from Greece to Rome in her palmiest days, we find the same state of things to prevail, except that the art was less pure, and that there was a greater development in the direction of the mechanical science. At the bottom of the success of the Romans as conquerers and colonisers, lay the broad fact that they were the greatest engineers of the time. Their harbours, their aqeducts, their bridges, their lines of road through Europe, and the public buildings erected wherever their dominion extended, are simply so many illustrations of applied science in a high state of development. If Virgil wrote his Æneid to the delight of Emperors and the torment of school boys, he wrote also on sowing and reaping, the breeding of stock, and the keeping of bees. Cæsar's commentaries would never have been handed down to us as models of précis writing, if Cæsar himself had not been an able engineer officer, whose writings are marked by the clearness of arrangement and precision of detail which characterised his movements for the reduction of the Gaulish fortresses; and Cicero's attack upon the tribune Clodius, in which the latter is accused of desecrating the ashes of his Alban forefathers, had for its immediate occasion, the laying out of the road through Alba, Longa, near Rome, when the engineers employed on its alignment, cut through the ancient necropolis, which even at that remote date, had been buried for unknown ages under the tufas of the long extinct volcano of Mont Albano. If then we would truly follow the example left us by the

Greeks and Romans, we shall, like them, give due prominence in our educational course to scientific studies, bearing in mind that science is but another name for the knowledge of God's works and of His will as expressed in what we term natural laws, and that the better we understand these laws, and the more we live in accordance with them, so in proportion will be not only our natural prosperity, but our success in battling with the ignorance, disease and misery, which must ever be present in this world whilst it is inhabited by sinful men. And what work can be more noble than this? or how can we pay too much honour to those men who devote their lives to the advancement of science, casting as it were their bread on the waters of public opinion, and content to take for their reward the satisfaction of having worked for the benefit of their fellow men. Let this then be the spirit in which the work of this and of kindred institutions shall be carried on, each of its members, in his own special sphere of action, carefully recording facts and collecting data for future reference, on all points of scientific interest that come within his observation, without thought of personal distinction or consideration of pecuniary gain; and so by our separate, yet united endeavours, we may be able to assist in laying broad and deep, the solid foundations of a natural life, greater and more noble than was that of the classical nations of antiquity, and in fostering the growth of a national literature, which shall continue to bear fruit after the very names of Greece and Rome have faded into oblivion. Third Meeting. 1st April, 1880. E. Dobson, President, in the chair. New Members.—W. Malcolm, Major Bamfield.

Papers. 1. “On a Volcanic Dyke in the Heathcote Valley,” by A. D. Dobson. (Transactions, p. 391.)

Fourth Meeting. 6th May, 1880. E. Dobson, President, in the chair. New Members.—Rev. W. C. Harris, J. R. Gwatkin, J. E. Pickett, R. Schmidt.

Papers.

Fifth Meeting. 3rd June, 1880. E. Dobson, President, in the Chair. New Members.—T. Crook, J. Crosby, W. D. Meares, W. H. Pilliet, F. Valentine, Dr. J. Irving. Papers.

Abstract. The author pointed out that owing to the rapid growth of plantations around Christ-church, the situation of the Metereological Observatory has ceased to give a satisfactory average for the climate of the Canterbury Plains, and suggests the establishment of additional stations in other parts of the district.

Sixth Meeting. 1st July, 1880. Professor J. von Haast, Vice-president, in the Chair. New Members.—C. Clark, W. Sparks, Jun., J. B. Stansell, J. R. Thornton, Mrs. Innes, E. M. Clissold, Professor Haslam, C. B. Taylor. Papers. 1. “On Harpagornis,” by Professor J. von Haast. (Transactions, p. 169.) 2. “On New and Rare New Zealand Plants,” by J. B. Armstrong. Transactions, p. 335.)

Seventh Meeting. 5th August, 1880. Rev. J. W. Stack, Vice-president, in the Chair. New Member.—P. Cunningham. Papers. 1. “Notes on the Best Means of Meeting the Sanitary requirements of Colonial Towns,” by E. Dobson. (Transactions, p. 84.) 2. “On the Origin of Double Stars, as explained by the theory of Partial Impact,” by Professor A. W. Bickerton. (Transactions, p. 160.)

Eighth Meeting. 2nd September, 1880. Rev. J. W. Stack, Vice-president, in the chair. New Members.—J. B. Mayne, G. Withers. Papers. 1. “On the occurrence in New Zealand of Morrel morchella,” by J. B Armstrong. (Transactions, p. 343.) 2. “On a simple method of Illustrating the Motions of the Earth,” by Professor A. W. Bickerton. (Transactions, p. 164.) 3. “On a Natural Arrangement of the New Zealand Ferns,” by J. B. Armstrong. (Transactions, p. 359.) Ninth Meeting. 7th October, 1880. J. Inglis, in the chair. New Member.—R. C. Bishop. Papers. 1. “On the New Zealand Desmidieœ,” by Wm. Maskell. (Transactions, p. 297.)

Abstract. The author quotes the opinions of Mr. Pozzi, formerly a silk grower in Canton Ticino, Switzerland, and now a resident in Christchurch, to the effect that the soil and climate of Canterbury is suitable for the establishment of silk culture, and recommending as a preliminary step, that mulberry trees should be extensively planted.

Annual Meeting. 4th November, 1880. E. Dobson, President, in the chair. Papers. 1. “On Problems of Cosmical Impact,” by Professor A. W. Bickerton. (Transactions, p. 166.) 2. “On the Structure of Hormosira billardieri,” by T. A. Mollet. (Transactions, p. 318.) 3. “Contributions to New Zealand Malacology,” by Prof. F. W. Hutton. (Transactions, p. 200.)