ie SD Pe ao oe a F TRANSACTIONS OF THE NEW ZKALAND INSTITUTE >) A ih i hae i ne Wy i ie . Be Hie OND) 7 a Rs OLR oA Vee Vs oe ay) tive! me opaw® Tk rd rh ey edi Pom aT a) Wa Pe VWs hu HR svt pr de tka 4 7) TRANSACTIONS NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE 1889 NOM Eas OI (FirtH oF NEw SERIES) EDITED AND PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE INSTITUTE BY SIR JAMES HECTOR, K.C.M.G., M.D., F.RB.S. DIRECTOR _ IssuED May, 1890 WELLINGTON GEHKORGE DIDSBURY, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE TRUBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON E.C. i “ ei ; Ali Jin ‘ vi 7 7 ae ) IUIOL XLIII. XLIV. XLY. XLVI. XLVII. XLVIII. XLIX. LII. LITI. LIV. 1D LVI. LVII. Te} LIX. . Artesian Wells: . Notes on Contents. Note on the Wandering Albatros (Diomedea exulans). By Sir Walter Buller, K.C.M.G., D.Sc., F.R.S... On the Assumed Hybridity between the Common Fowl and the Woodhen (Ocydromus). By James Murie, M.D., LL.D., F.L.5.: communicated by Sir W. Buller : Parasitic Cepepoda of New Zealand, with Descriptions of ae Species. By George M. Thomson, III.—GEouLoey. On the Relatives Ages of the New Zealand Coalfields. By Professor F. W. Hutton, F.G.S... Note on the Geology of the Country about Lyell. By Professor F. W. Hutton .. On the Conformable Relations of the Different Mem- bers of the Waitemata Series. By James Park, F.G.S., Lecturer Thames School of Mines A Theory on the Formation of Gold into Specks and Nuggets. By H. P. Washbourne ae Origin of the Loess Deposit of the Timaru Plateau. By J. Hardcastle On Certain Rare Minerals associated with the Tin- -ore of Stewart Island. By William Skey, Analyst to the Geological Survey of New Zealand. With Notes on their Mode of Occurrence, by Alex- ander McKay and Ruapehu Mountain via Kuripapanga and Erehwon. eye Tab IRONS 6 No. 2 By 15l. Hill, F.G.S. IV.—Borany. Danco eas of New Native Plants. - et D. Petrie, M.A., F.L.S. Description of a New Species of Celmisia. Chapman On the Geonmenes of a Variety of Mitrasacme mon- tana, Hook. f.,in New Zealand. By T. Kirk, F.LS. ve Description of a New Species of ‘Chenopodium—C. buchanani. By T. Kirk : Notice of the Discovery of Aspleniwum japonicum, a Fern new to the New Zealand Flora. By T. F Cheeseman, F.L.S., Curator of the Auckland Museum .. A Description of Two Newly- discovered Indigenous Grypicgsmie Plants. By W. Colenso, F.R.S., MGS, A Description “of ‘some Newly- discovered Indigenous Cryptogamic Plants. By W. Colenso.. A Description of some Newly-discovered Phzenogamic Plants, being a Further Contribution towards the making-known the he of New Zealand. By W. Colenso : some New "Zealand Ferns. Hamilton By F. R. By? Al Vil PAGES 340-342 342-353 . 391-399 400-405 - 406-414 . 415-422 . Descriptive Geology of the District between Napier . 422-499 .. 429-438 . 439-443 . 444-445 - 445-446 - 446-447 . 448-449 . 449-452 - 452-458 -. 459-493 493 vill Contents. V.—CHEMISTRY. PAGES Arr. LXI. Note on the Analysis of a Mineral Water from the Otira Gorge. By George Gray, F.C.S., Lecturer on Chemistry, School of Agriculture, Lincoln -- 495-497 I.—MIScELLANEOUS—continued. LXII. On the Korotangi, or Stone Bird. By Major Wilson : communicated by Edward Tregear, F.R.G.S. .. 499-508 NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE. Twenty-first Annual Heber 1888-89.. by is .. 511-512 Accounts for 1888-89 , - Ns 56 a6 512 PROCEEDINGS. WELLINGTON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. Inaugural Address by the President, A. de B. Brandon, B.A... 515-518 On the Occurrence of Fluor-spur at the Baton Goldfields. By J. Park, F.G.S. oc 521 Further Evidence re the Korotangi or Stone Bird 5¢ .. 522-527 Drawings of New Fishes exhibited .. se 527 On the Chinese Settlement in New Zealand and Australia. By Coleman Phillips . 527-528 Remarks on Fossil Plants of New Zealand. By Sir J. ‘Hector .. 529 Curious Growth of Potato .. Bc 529 Remarks on a Specimen of Gurnard (Lrigla vanessa 2) 56 530 On Adulteration in Drugs. By C. Hulke, F.G.S. oc 536 Remarks on Curious Habits of a Spider. By C. Hulke se 536 Abstract of Annual Report and Balance-sheet 536-537 Resolution regarding Donation of Books by Mr. C. R. Carter to N.Z. Institute . 365 537 Election of Officers for 1890.. : 537 On some Maori Implements of Uncommon Design. ‘By T. W. Kirk, F.R.M.S. Se : .. 539-540 Skulls from Chatham Islands exhibited ae 3¢ 5e 540 AUCKLAND INSTITUTE. On Alloys. By Professor F. D. Brown 541 Notice of the Discovery of an Old Maori Wooden Comb on Great Barrier Island. By H. Winkelmann Se a6 541 On New Zealand Fibres. By J. A. Pond Bo ae Ses 542 On the Waitomo Caves. By T. Humphries .. bc 542 The Story of the Waikato River. By Professor A. P. Thomas .. 542 The Life and Times of Heres Coles By E. A. Mac- kechnie : 542 Contents. 1x On Weather Forecasts and Storm-warnings. we T. F. Cheese- PAGES man, F.L.S ; .. 542-543 On Animal Heat. By Dr. T. G. Davy 543 Resolution regarding the Preservation of the Native ‘Flora and Fauna 20 O10 543 On Electric Bleaching. By "Professor F. D. Brown 50 as 543 On Athletics in their “Relation to Social Dev open. By Dr. Bond . ae ee Be : be 544 Abstract of Annual Report or: a - a3 Be 544 Election of Officers for 1890.. a ys ac 544 PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE OF CANTERBURY. Remarks on the Shoulder- girdles of Aptornis and Cnemiorinis. By H. O. Forbes, F.R.G.S ae ae ae as 545 On Soils and Geological Fertilizers. By Professor Hutton ae 5 On the Physical Characters, Climate, People, and Prospects of the British Possessions in Rew Guinea, with some Personal Experiences of Travel there. By H.O. Forbes .. ae 545 Abstract of Annual Report and Balaton sheet o€ i 546 Election of Officers for 1890.. 547 Resolution inviting the Australasian ‘Association for the “Advance- ment of Science to meet in Christchurch. DAT On some Simple Experiments to illustrate Force, Energy, Mo- mentum, &c. By Professor F. W. Bickerton x 547 A Method of explaining the Phenomena of Dissociation, and some of the Peculiarities of the Isothermals of Gases, by means of Molecular Attraction. By Professor Bickerton .. 547 On some of the Results of the Impact of Spherical Nebule. By Professor Bickerton re a a ae oe 547 OTAGO INSTITUTE. Revolutions regarding Publication of a Flora of New Zealand .. 548 A Chapter of German Literature. By Dr. Biilau ss ee 549 On the Development of the Kiwi. By Professor Parker as 549 Abstract of Annual Report and Balance-sheet Be ie 549 Election of Officers for 1890.. 5c fe 3 te 549 WESTLAND INSTITUTE. Abstract of Annual Report and Balance-sheet oe ce 550 HAWKE’S BAY PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE. On Movement and Sensation in Plants. By Dr. W. I. Spencer 55 Exhibit of Diatomaceous Earth from Makaretu 55 A Legend of the Large Australian Screech-owl, called by the Australian Natives Ti-na-tinity. By T. Pine On Plants and Astrology. By A. Hamilton AS Notes on Two Birds recently shot at Napier. By A. Hamilton. ; On the Diatomacee. By Dr. W.1. Spencer . o : On Sponges, their Life-history. By A. Hamilton On some of the peculiar and little-known Arts of the Old New- Or Ot St Or Or Or Or Or Or Cr wwe Zealanders. By W. Colensc, F.R.S., F.L.S. 5 : 553 On the Deposit of Moa-bones at Te Aute. By A. Hamilton .. 553 Contributions to the List of New Zealand Fishes, being a List of the Fishes recorded from the East Coast of New Zealand. By A. Hamilton 553 Abstract of Annual Report and Balance- sheet od es 554 Election of Officers for 1890 <6 “a Bi ” 554 X Contents. NELSON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. On the Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca) and the Great Horned PAGES Owl (Bubo virgiuanus). By Dr. Coleman 555: On the Difference of Temperature at the Surface of ‘the Earth and above it. By Dr. Hudson .. 556 An Eyening with the British Association. “By the “Bishop of Nelson He ie - 2 i 556 Abstract of Annual Report o¢ see i: - -- 506-557 Election of Officers for 1890. . 557 Alaska and the Mammoth. By T. Blake-Huffam 557 AP PE ND xe Meteorological Statistics for 1889 .. ee sis ae 561 Notes on the Weather for 1889 = oe we we 562 Rainfall Table for 1866-89 .. a ae le = 563 Rainfall for 1889.. he a 564 Earthquakes reported i in New Zealand in 1889 oe ue 564 Honorary Members of the New Zealand Institute as Be 565, Ordinary Members of the New Zealand Institute Ae -- 566-577 Institutions and Persons to whom this Volume is presented .. 578 Index a a a ie ue i ae 583 Contents .. 5c oe a sic 36 Sc vx List of Plates BO x “0 xl Board of Governors of the New Zealand Institu te le as xill Abstracts of Rules and Statutes of the New Zealand Institute .. xili-xv Officers of Incorporated Societies, and Extracts from the Rules — xvi-xix DIOL, XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XOVET. XVIII. XIX. OXe KOO XCXIT. XXII. XXL. XV. XXVI. XXVIT. XXVITE. XIX, XXX. XXXI. XXXII. TSA Ox: Author. PACT RS: Merrson.—Ground Plan of Monck’s Cave, Sumner .. ‘3 Articles found in Monck’s Cave, Sumner . Taytor WHITE.—Shadow-pictures MaskELL.—Coccidid@ ” ” 39 29 ” ” ” ” > > 9 Psyllide ” 27 ” ” are 3 Alewrodide .. : Sutrrr.—Land Shells of New Zealand be) ” UrquHarr.—Jenolan Cave Spiders 55 New Zealand Spiders T. W. Kirx.—Feathers of the Hawk PaRKER.—Mustelus antarcticus Kryestey.—Regalecus argenteus Mvriz.—Supposed Hybrid Woodhen Fowl vs Ditto ” ” 9 ” Go Copepoda G. M. THomson. 29 29 0 ; ” ” rs a we Park.—Sections of Waitemata Series Hintu.—Sections of Artesian Wells T. Kirk. — Mitrasacme montana. buchanant Chenopodiuin TO FACE PAGE 64 70 108 NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE. ESTABLISHED UNDER AN ACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NEW ZEALAND INTITULED ‘‘ THE NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE ACT, 1867.” BoarpD OF GOVERNORS. (EX OFFICIO.) His Excellency the Governor. The Hon. the Colonial Secretary. (NOMINATED.) The Hon. W. B. D. Mantell, F.G.S.; W.T. L. Travers, F.L.S. ; Sir James Hector, K.C.M.G., M.D., F.R.S.; W. M. Mas- kell, F.R.M.S.; Thomas Mason; the Hon. Robert Phara- zyn, M.L.C., F.R.G.S. (ELECTED.) 1889.—James McKerrow, F.R.A.S.; S. Percy Smith, F.R.G:S.; Alfred de B. Brandon, B.A. Manacer: Sir James Hector. Honorary TREASURER: W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S. SECRETARY: R. B. Gore. ABSTRACTS OF RULES AND STATUTES. GAZETTED IN THE ‘‘ NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE,” 9TH Marcu, 1868. SEcTION I. Incorporation of Societies. 1. No Society shall be incorporated with the Institute under the provisions of ‘‘The New Zealand Institute Act, 1867,” unless such Society shall consist of not less than twenty-five members, subscribing in the aggregate a sum of not less than fifty pounds sterling annually, for the promotion of art, science, or such other branch of knowledge for which it is associated, to be from time to time certified to the satisfaction of the Board of Governors of the Institute by the Chairman for the time being of the Society. X1V New Zealand Institute. 2. Any Society incorporated as aforesaid shall cease to be incorpo- rated with the Institute in case the number of the members of the said Society shall at any time become less than twenty-five, or the amount of me annually subscribed by such members shall at any time be less than £50. 3. The by-laws of every Society to be incorporated as aforesaid shall provide for the expenditure of not less than one-third of the annual revenue in or towards the formation or support of some local public museum or library, or otherwise shall provide for the contribution of not less than one-sixth of its said revenue towards the extension and main- tenance of the Museum and Library of the New Zealand Institute. 4. Any Society incorporated as aforesaid, which shall in any one year fail to expend the proportion of revenue affixed in manner provided by Rule 3 aforesaid, shall from thenceforth cease to be incorporated with the Institute. 5. All papers read before any Society for the time being incorporated with the Institute shall be deemed to be communications to the Insti- tute, and may then be published as Proceedings or Transactions of the Institute, subject to the following regulations of the Board of the Insti- tute regarding publications :— Regulations regarding Publications. (a.) The publications of the Institute shall consist of a current abstract of the proceedings of the Societies for the time being incorporated with the Institute, to be intituled ‘‘ Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute,” and of transactions, comprising papersread before the incorporated Societies (subject, however, to selection as hereinafter mentioned), to be intituled “ Trans- actions of the New Zealand Institute.” (b.) The Institute shall have power to reject any papers read before any of the incorporated Societies. (c.) Papers so rejected will be returned to the Society in which they were read. (d.) A proportional contribution may be required from each Society towards the cost of publishing the Proceedings and Transac- tions of the Institute. (e.) Each incorporated Society will be entitled to receive a proportional number of copies of the Proceedings and Transactions of the Institute, to be from time to time fixed by the Board of Governors. (f.) Extra copies will be issued to any of the members of incorporated Societies at the cost-price of publication. 6. All property accumulated by or with funds derived from incor- porated Societies, and placed in the charge of the Institute, shall be vested in the Institute, and be used and applied at the discretion of the Board of Governors for public advantage, in like manner with any other of the property of the Institute. 7. Subject to “The New Zealand Institute Act, 1867,” and to the foregoing rules, all Societies incorporated with the Institute shall be entitled to retain or alter their own form of constitution and the by-laws for their own management, and shall conduct their own affairs. 8. Upon application signed by the Chairman and countersigned by the Secretary of any Society, accompanied by the certificate required under Rule No. 1, a certificate of incorporation will be granted under the seal of the Institute, and will remain in force as long as the foregoing rules of the Institute are complied with by the Society. Abstracts of Itules and Statutes. XV Section II. For the Management of the Property of the Institute. 9, All donations by Societies, public departments, or private indi- viduals to the Museum of the Institute shall be acknowledged by a printed form of receipt, and shall be duly entered in the books of the Institute provided for that purpose, and shall then be dealt with as the Board of Governors may direct. 10. Deposits of articles for the Museum may be accepted by the Insti- tute, subject to a fortnight’s notice of removal to be given either by the owner of the articles or by the Manager of the Institute, and such deposits shall be duly entered in a separate catalogue. 11. Books relating to natural science may be deposited in the Library of the Institute, subject to the following conditions :— (a.) Such books are not to be withdrawn by the owner under six months’ notice, if such notice shall be required by the Board of Governors. (b.) Any funds especially expended on binding and preserving such deposited books at the request of the depositor shall be charged against the books, and must be refunded to the Institute before their withdrawal, always subject to special arrange- ments made with the Board of Governors at the time of deposit. (c.) No books deposited in the Library of the Institute shall be removed for temporary use except on the written authority or receipt of the owner, and then only for a period not exceeding seven days at any one time. 12. All books in the Library of the Institute shall be duly entered in a catalogue, which shall be accessible to the public. 13. The public shall be admitted to the use of the Museum and Library subject to by-laws to be framed by the Board. Section III. The Laboratory shall for the time being be and remain under the exclusive management of the Manager of the Institute. Section IV. Or Date 25RD SEPTEMBER, 1870 Honorary Members. Whereas the rules of the Societies incorporated under the New Zea- land Institute Act provide for the election of Honorary Members of such Societies, but inasmuch as such Honorary Members would not thereby become members of the New Zealand Institute, and whereas it is expe- dient to make provision for the election of Honorary Members of the New Zealand Institute, it is hereby declared,— 1. Each incorporated Society may in the month of November next nominate for election as Honorary Members of the New Zealand Institute three persons, and in the month of November in each succeeding year one person, not residing in the colony. 2. The names, descriptions, and addresses of persons so nominated, together with the grounds on which their election as Honorary Members is recommended, shall be forthwith forwarded to the Manager of the New Zealand Institute, and shall by him be sub- mitted to the Governors at the next succeeding meeting. 3. From the persons so nominated the Governors may select in the first year not more than nine, and in each succeeding year not more than three, who shall from thenceforth be Honorary Members of the New Zealand Institute, provided that the total number of Honorary Members shall not exceed thirty. XV1 New Zealand Institute. LIST OF INCORPORATED SOCIETIES. NAME OF SOCIETY. DATE OF INCORPORATION. WELLINGTON PHILOSOPHICAL SocrIETY - 10th June, 1868. AUCKLAND INSTITUTE - - - - 10th June, 1868. PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE OF CANTERBURY 22nd Oct., 1868. Oraco INSTITUTE - = - 2 - 18th Oct., 1869. WESTLAND INSTITUTE : 3 = - 21st Dec., 1874. Hawke’s Bay Puinosopnican Institute - 31st Mar., 1875. SoUTHLAND INSTITUTE - = = - 21st July, 1880. NELSON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY - - %0th Dec., 1883. OFFICERS OF INCORPORATED SOCIETIES, AND EXTRACTS FROM THE RULES. WELLINGTON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. OFFICE-BEARERS FOR 1890.—President — Charles Hulke, F.C.8.; Vice-presidents —A. McKay, F.G.S., HE. Tregear, F.R.G.S.; Council—W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S., H. P. Higgin- son, M.Inst.C.H., Hon. R. Pharazyn, M.L.C., F.R.G.S., W. M. Maskell, F.R.M.S., Sir James Hector, K.C.M.G., M.D..,. F.R.S., A. de B. Brandon, B.A., E. D. Bell; Secretary and Treasurer—R. B. Gore ; Auditor—T. King. Extracts from the Rules of the Wellington Philosophical Society. 5. Every member shall contribute annually to the funds of the Society the sum of one guinea. 6. The annual contribution shall be due on the first day of January in each year. 7. The sum of ten pounds may be paid at any time as a composition for life of the ordinary annual payment. 14. The time and place of the general meetings of members of the Society shall be fixed by the Council and duly announced by the Secretary. AUCKLAND INSTITUTE. OFFICE-BEARERS FOR 1890. — President — J. Stewart, C.E.; Vice-presidents —Josiah Martin, F.G.8.; 5S. Percy Smith, F.R.G.S.; Couwncil—W. Berry, Professor F. D. Brown, C. Cooper, T. Humphries, E. A. Mackechnie, T. Peacock, M.H.R., J. A. Pond, A. G. Purchas, M.R.C.S., J. B. Russell, Professor A. P. Thomas, F.L.S., Rev. W. Tebbs; T'rustees— EK. A. Mackechnie, T. Peacock, M.H.R., 8S. P. Smith, F.R.G.S. ; Secretary and Treasurer—T. F. Cheeseman, F.L.S., F.Z.5. ; Auditor—J. Reid. Incorporated Societies. XVii Extracts from the Rules of the Auckland Institute. 1. Any person desiring to become a member of the Institute shall be proposed in writing by two members, and shall be balloted for at the next meeting of the Council. 4. New members on election to pay one guinea entrance-fee, in addi- tion to the annual subscription of one guinea, the annual subscription being payable in advance on the first day of April for the then current ear. 2 5. Members may at any time become life-members by one payment of ten pounds ten shillings, in lieu of future annual subscriptions. 10. Annual general meeting of the Society on the third Monday of February in each year. Ordinary business meetings are called by the Council from time to time. PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE OF CANTERBURY. OFFICE-BEARERS FoR 1890.—President—S. Hurst-Seager, A.R.1.B.A.; Vice-presidents—H. R. Webb, F.R.M.S., J. T. Meeson, B.A.; Treaswrer—J. T. Meeson, B.A. ; Secretary— R. M. Laing, M.A., B.Sc. ; Cowncil—Professor F. W. Hutton, Dr. Symes, T. W. Naylor Beckett, F.L.S., B. Bull, R. W. Fereday, F.E.S. Extracts from the Rules of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. 21. The ordinary meetings of the Institute shall be held on the first Thursday of each month during the months from March to November inclusive. 35. Members of the Institute shall pay one guinea annually as a sub- scription to the funds of the Institute. The subscription shall be due on the first of November in every year. 37. Members may compound for all annual subscriptions of the cur- rent and future years by paying ten guineas. OTAGO INSTITUTE. OFFICE-BEARERS FOR 1890.— President — Dr. Belcher ; Vice-presidents—Dr. de Zouche, Dr. Hocken; Council— — Chapman, — Wilson, D. Petrie, Professor Scott, Professor Parker, C. W. Adams, G. M. Thomson ; Secretary—Professor Gibbons; Treaswrer—H. Melland; Auditor—D. Brent. Extracts from the Constitution and Rules of the Otago Institute. 2, Any person desiring to join the Society may be elected by ballot, on being proposed in writing at any meeting of the Council or Society by two members, and on payment of the annual subscription of one guinea for the year then current. 5. Members may at any time become life-members by one payment of ten pounds and ten shillings in lieu of future annual subscriptions. 8. An annual general meeting of the members of the Society shall be held in January in each year, at which meeting not less than ten XVlil New Zealand Institute. members must be present, otherwise the meeting shall be adjourned by the members present from time to time until the requisite number of members is present. (5.) The session of the Otago Institute shall be during the winter months, from May to October, both inclusive. WESTLAND INSTITUTE. OFFICE-BEARERS FOR 1889.—President—John Nicholson ; Vice-president—Arthur H. King: Treasurer—J. W. Souter ; Committee—J. N. Smythe, R. Cross, M. L. Moss, EH. B. Sam- mons, Captain Bignell, J. P. Will, B. Durbridge, F. Eckman, — Scanlan, W. L. Fowler, C. E. Holmes, R. Hilldrup; Secretary—Henry Weston. Extracts from the Rules of the Westland Institute. 3. The institute shall consist (1) of life-members—i.e., persons who have at any one time made a donation to the Institute of ten pounds ten shillings or upwards, or persons who, in reward of special services ren- dered to the Institute, have been unanimously elected as such by the Committee or at the general half-yearly meeting; (2) of members who pay two pounds two shillings each year; (3) of members paying smaller sums, not less than ten shillings. 5. The Institute shall hold a half-yearly meeting on the third Mon- day in the months of December and June. HAWKE’S BAY PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE. OFFICE-BEARERS FoR 1890.—President—Dr. Spencer ; Vice- President—H. Hill; Cownctl—Dr. Moore, A. V. McDonald, J.8. Large, J. T. Carr, W. J. Birch, R. Lamb; Secretary and Curator —A. Hamilton; Treasurer —R. C. Harding; Auditor—T. K. Newton. Zatracts from the Rules of the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute. 3. The annual subscription for each member shall be one guinea, payable in advance on the first day of January in every year. 4, Members may at any time become life-members by one payment of ten pounds ten shillings in lieu of future annual subscriptions. (4.) The session of the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute shall be during the winter months from May to October, both inclusive ; and general meetings shall be held on the second Monday in each of those six months, at 8 p.m. SOUTHLAND INSTITUTE. OFFICE-BEARERS FOR 1887.—President—Ven. Archdeacon Stocker ; Vice-president —A. Highton, B.A.; Council — — Bailey, — McLean, C. Tanner, Dr. Galbraith, and Dr. Closs; Treasurer—K. Robertson ; Secretary—HK. Webber. Incorporated Societies. XIX NELSON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. OFFICE-BEARERS FoR 1890.—President—Bishop of Nelson; Vice-presidents—Dr. Boor and A. 8. Atkinson; Secretary— Dr. Coleman; Jreasurer—Dr. Hudson ; Cowneil—Dr. Mackie, J. Holloway, Dr. Cressey, Rev. A. R. Watson, — Joynt; Curator—R. T. Kingsley. Extracts from the Rules of the Nelson Philosophical Society. 4, That members shall be elected by ballot. 6. That the annual subscription shall be one guinea. 7. That the sum of ten guineas may be paid in composition of the annual subscription. 16. That the meetings be held monthly. 23. The papers read before the Society shall be immediately delivered to the Secretary. PS ssn Be es i a Vee a ee, 1 “GA 7 ip . aed 5 ow = 7 ; _ 7 re , 7 na v aa aALie c@ e > 3 . J _ 1d 1 : A e294 a a 7 = : | 7 . i > oe * a ® ¥ e * * - TRANSACTIONS. - Pe mi - ne Pu. ; al es vs a ahr tome aa ram 1a ; "_ Mr igs) ‘Aare fie , oe een hy aa ih eines Pe es dal gh Eas ete zi Lb aan PAE ih ee Jee eg aoa i Me Te. NEE 79 CdD tie See A Till Wo a Abit ies . os ete ny yi os ail SEP gLe 1) Sem saat vag ving : oan 35 . lead Sine fl m4) 5 ee 4 . Pyity i es a Mi, ye Tis hill rir seule ‘ Deli 6 . g 2 - te eur (io a e25(4—— oe | eae . ae .' > awe Ong ay | tents = iM “le as AA4 7 Ve tse 7 i : piud cy 3 ae i | 7 _ ’ FS ; i W r 7 P 7 3 - 4 4 ; gee > ‘ x AR ASN Saye LO INES OF THE NRW An BieAa To ALIN! De SENDS EP Bor Ui as 1889. I.—MISCELLANEOUS. Arr. I.—The Middle Voice in Lat. By Henry Betcuer, Fellow of King’s College, London, Rector of the High School of Otago. (Read before the Otago Institute, 14th June, 1887.] ‘«* Anu verbs which refer primarily to a physical process, and do not merely state the fact that such-and-such an action is going on, are either deponent throughout, or deponents in the future tense. ‘“In other words, if the primary reference of a verb is to any physical action, functional or organic, that verb has the inflexions of the middle voice either in all its tenses or in one —the future.”’* The article (cccii.) contains Dr. Rutherford’s proof of the proposition advanced, and the proof appears to me conclusive. The pre-eminence of the future middle forms in Greek has long been a difficulty with Greek students. There is no obvious reason why future-tense forms should predominate as reflexive or middle. If there is any subtle significance attach- ing to future actions so that a reflexive force should be felt to be inherent in them, and that such force should be expressed by inflexions, the significance is so subtle that it evades discovery. In Latin as in French and Spanish the future is built up of auxiliaries, while in O. English at the state of high inflexional condition there was no future tense. The reflexive pronoun and the Greek future suffix have the letter s common to both. ‘This significant s is a remarkable fragment of language. As regards the reflexive pronoun there seems to be evidence that se, which within the literary period has represented the third grammatical person, had at a * Rutherford: New Phrynichus, p. 383. i: 2 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. remoter period represented the second and first grammatical persons reflexively. At the time written language brings se to notice it is in a worn-out condition. It retains no mark of gender or of number. Even the genitive case has vanished. In actual use the same inflexions of sE are, according to the context, considered either as singular or plural. It is highly probable that in its earlier condition the reflexive se was fully inflected for all relationships customarily represented by inflexion. Logically there is necessity for reflexives in all three persons. And if there were some primary sound sa there can be no a priort reason why number, gender, case, and person should not have been represented by ‘developments of this radical. At any rate it is now admitted as a working hypothesis that verto-r is the same as verto-se, and on this hypothesis, as verto se means ‘‘I turn myself,’ se here represents the first person. On the general question that the reflexive verb precedes the passive, that in the growth of verbal forms the middle or reflexive verb is historically antecedent to the passive forms, there has been since Bopp’s time substantial agreement. Bopp (ii. 648) enunciates his view briefly thus: Ma-mi, sa-si, ta-tv, are suffixes naturaily formed by reduplication. If, then, ma signifies me, ma-mi signifies myself. By parity of forma- tion, sa-si, ta-ti, mean thyself, himself. Hence arise the suffixes of the present indicative reflexive of the Greek verb. Ma-mi falls away into -par, sa-s2 nto -ca, ta-ti into -rav. Bopp points out that in Old Slavonic the Accusative of the reflexive pronoun is added to the transitive verb to give it a Reflexive or passive significance. He illustrates from Lithu- anian, which attaches the consonant -s without vowel media- tion to the active voice to form the reflexive verb; under certain conditions also it prefixes the reflexive pronoun with the same result. In 1846 Key advanced this view of the Latin middle voice, as being not an application of the passive voice, but as being the actual forerunner of the passive voice. Key said (Lat. Gr., 2nd edit., p. 59),— ‘In Latin a reflective suffix is added to a transitive verb, so as to give it the reflective sense. ‘ , , Qn LG Ww TAYKAKLO TOV KTH PLATWV TL on Kpwlets ; zoAukTy pov 1S araé Neyopevov in Homer, wherein the caution of Phrynichus (§ 206) may be noted : iets od Tots dra€ eipnprevors T poo eXopev TOV vovv, dAAG Tots TOAAdKS KEXpHLEVoLs. The azaé in H. is Il. v. 613: os p’evt aoa lol , , Vvare TOAVKTLOV to\vAnjuos. 22 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. Editors of H. (l.c.) make no remark ; a parallel passage in Soph., Antig. 843, gives no help. The two epithets describe a wealthy man rich in chattels and standing corn. Examine the cognate dxrjpov—H. ix. 126 (same passage is repeated, ix. 264). The passage is said to be spurious. Paley thinks éxrjpov a post-Homeric word: quotes Theocr. xvi. 33, but does not notice dxryjpor in his tract on Post-epic words in Homer. Tn II. ix. 126 the whole sense is against the inclusion of land as property. There is a full enumeration of goods and cattle and slaves (cf. the vow of Ascanius in Ain. ix. 260), the like of which if a man had he would not be dxrjpov éprtiporo xXpvaoro. Next consider zoAvAjuos (cf. dAjuos). L. and S. take this to signify wealthy in land on which corn is growing—rich in cornfields. Autenreith, s.v., gives ‘rich in harvests.” The passage quoted is Il. vy. 618 (cf. above wodv«rjpwv). The word is also az. Ney. The passage may comprise either mere redundancy of epithet, or identifies two kinds of property: property in goods (krjpara), property in land-produce (Ayjior). The question arises, What is the meaning of -Ajios? Ayjior in H. is used of the wncwt crop (segetes). Cf. Il. 1. 147: ds 8 dre kujon Lédvpos Babi Ajiov é\av. (As when the Zephyr cometh, and stirreth the lush corn, and with sudden rush sends the ears a-nodding.) Cf. also, 11. x1., 560: keipe. 7 ciceAOow Babi Aniov (SC. dvos vhs). (The ass, heedless of blows, goes and browses on the lush corn.) (vos may be an epitheton constans of the ass; or here the significance may be that, having once got into the midst of such fodder, he cannot be got to budge by blows, or any- how ;—if this be so, the epithet is proleptic.) If this be the meaning of Ajov, there is no trace of it in ddjios as in IL. ix. 260, in ix. 125, and vi. 201. The scholiast explains, ‘“‘ é\Auris Booxnpdtov.”’ In the passages cited the wealth is neither of cattle nor of land. Great wealth is indi- cated nevertheless. Seven tripods, ten talents of gold, twenty burnished cauldrons, twelve sturdy racers, seven maids skilled in fine needlework — Lesbian girls who in beauty excel all women: had a man such goods as these he were surely no pauper (aAnuos). This famous passage has caught the fancy of Xen. (Sympos. iv. 45), and Ovid. (Her. iii. 31, 36), and Virgil (Aun. ix. 260, seqq.). Translators evade éAjos. Paley thinks no satisfactory derivation possible. In any case there is no reference to BeicHEer.—Land-system of the Iliad. 23 land in severalty in the passages wherein the word occurs. Although, then, the meaning of -Ajjos might have been illumined _ by the admitted meaning of Ajov, no such light is forthcoming. A possible connection with Xe«u (Aaia) has been suggested, and is very likely. Note, however, Aca seems to be restricted to booty of cattle and movables, is rarely used of men, and in the nature of the case could not be used of land. IloAvKAnpos is not found in Il., but xAjpos occurs in Il. xv. 495, seqq., where we read that—The warrior dies no unseemly death who falls fighting for his country: GAN’ Goydos TE ON Kal Taldes OTiTTH Kal olkos Kal KAHpos GKYnparTos. (His wife, his children, his homestead, and his «Ajpos remain uninjured.) What is KAjpos ? Autenreith, s.v., thinks xAdw a cognate. Wharton agrees. In this case xAjpos means a sherd, a broken twig, a morsel of stone, anything convenient for the casting of the lot. In Babrius, Ixx. 2, the gods are said to marry xAyjpw, and "YBpts becomes the spouse of "Apis. The main idea is allotment by chance. Cf. Il. vil. 175. Nine heroes cast lots which of them is to encounter Hector in the duel : ek 0° Eopev KANpos Kuvens Ov ap’ NOedov adroit Alavtos. In the Dictt. the history of the word is traced until the getting of property in the ordinary course of heritage or com- merce is reached. Cf. Demosthenes, 329, § 15: KkexAypovopunKas pev Pidwvos Tod KNOEoTOD XpNLaATwv wELovwN 7) TevTEeTAAAYTOV. In Historic times occurs the well-known instance of tenure by «Ajjpos in the case of lands annexed by Athens. Evidence goes to show that a slice of arable, of pasture, and of wood- land constituted the xAjpos of the Athenian squatter. If the squatter (kAnpodyos) preferred his home in Athens he paid a heavy absentee-tax, which in every case amounted to the same sum. The tax tends to prove that, in the case of annexed land, pastures forests and fields were parcelled out into separate patches, and that a xAjpos consisted of an aggre- gation of three such patches. The xAjpos then within historic times denotes severalty of permanent tenure with rents appertaining, and a fixed tax in case of absenteeism. Ridgway (loc. cit.), Journal of Hellen. Stud., p. 331, Oct., 1885, holds that «Ajpos need mean nothing more than that the right to a portion in the common fields shall be preserved, 94 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. and that care shall be taken to protect the widow and orphans against those who would remove the landmarks. I notice that the distribution by the King of Pheakia of common land (cf. Od. vi. 9, 10), as well as the mode of distri- bution by lots (kAjpor), comes within the scope of the system prevalent in Italy within historical times. Publicus ager is common land, formally surrendered by a foe after warfare (Liv. i. 38, 2). ‘‘ Publicatur is ager qui ex hostibus captus sit,” is the defi- nition of the jurist. Land thus brought im publicum was devoted to meeting State expenses. In this way the Roman Government was the ground-landlord of whole cities and countries. A State cannot farm the acres of a continent: hence the publicus ager was assigned, subject to resumption at will, on easy terms, usually at 10 per cent. of the gross value of the annual produce. This tithe was recoverable immediately by State officials. The occupation of publicus ager is called pos- sessio ; hence possessor is a tenant-at-will, one who does not hold permanent interest in any property. So Livy, passim, ii. 42, 2: “Id multos quidem patrum, ipsos possessores, periculo rerum suarum terrebat.’”’ Cf. also W.JGL 825 tv. O60, 25 vi. 0, 42> Vi. 30,0. The last place cited quotes part of the Licinian Land Bills of 377 seqq. B.c.: ‘Ne quis plus quingenta jugera agri possi- deret.”’ Possessio, although of the nature of tenancy at will, was alienable and transmissible as leasehold property. Publicus ager was sold, as by Appius Ceecus to defray the expenses of his engineering works and improvements, but never seems to have been given away in absolute gift; at any rate not in the earlier Roman days: nor does it appear that gentlemen in Rome were at liberty to settle on large tracts of public land according to their willingness to bear the tithe-charge. The area of the tenement was limited by many laws, while about 312 acres seems to have been the legal maximum of holding. This distinctive meaning of possessio holds good throughout the Latin period. ‘«Possessio est usus agri aut aedificii, non ipse fundus aut ager.’’—Paul. Diac. on Festus, p. 232. ‘«« Possessiones appellantur agri late patentes publici priva- tique, qui non mancipatione sed usu tenebantur, et ut quisque occupaverat, possidebat.”’ It seems from the above that possessio is akin to the Homeric «Ajpos (loc. cit.)—that is, the right of use, but not land or domain in freehold. Severalty in land-tenure with right of testament in land indicates severalty of homestead and residence. The farmer’s Bretcuer.—Land-system of the Iliad. 28 house and land, the landlord’s house and land, are conceptions that have some correlation in fact. That aman should dwell in the midst of his land seems an appropriate arrangement. Society, as Ridgway points out, seems to be in the house- community stage. In Priam’s house, Il. vi. 248, the whole of his family dwell together : GAN dre 67) Upiaprovo doprov mepikadAAr€ ikavev. mevtnKovT evecav Oarapor E€atoro ALGovo. It contains fifty apartments built of polished stone. The sons of the monarch, his daughters, live with their spouses beneath a common roof. The passage in Virgil repeats the intimation afforded by the liad. A man’s kinsfolk are éféoruor, they belong to the same hearth. This may be an epithet sur- viving from an older time, but it is significantly appropriate to the conditions of the only known Trojan household. The term is also applied to the native Trojan as distinct from foreigners (ézikoupot). In the Odyssey the house of Menelaos at Sparta, of Alkinoos in Pheeakia, of Odusseus in Ithaka, are described ; but this circumstantial detailis omitted: a point which, taken with other considerations, goes to show that the social life of the Iliad is remote from that of the Odyssey. This common house points to common land; and there is a fine passage in II. xviii. 541, to which attention may now be directed : ev 0° ériOn vewov podakyy, mlepav apovpav, evtpetay TpiroAov, K.T.A. The poet is describing the Scutum Achillis, and says the craftsman wrought into it ‘a loamy rich land, fallow, broad, and thrice ploughed (rpizoAov); and many ploughmen in the fallow drove their teams up and down, turning at the head- land; and when they had done their turn, and had reached the top of the land, a man came forward, and gave to each into his hands a stoup of rich wine, while others were doing their turn up the furrows and were driving to reach the headland of the deep-soiled field.” This is the famous Ploughing of the Fallow in the Scutum, and the conjecture is reasonable that it indicates a ploughing of the common land simultaneously by all interested on a day fixed by authority or custom. Doubtless the labour was begun by all at once, at an annual date, such as was, among our forefathers, Plough Monday. The word zpizodov is bracketed into the text above, as deserving some consideration in detail. The customary trans- lation ‘‘ thrice ploughed” has been used; but this translation 26 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. is a matter for argument. Etymology shows zeA- and col- to be cognate stems. atzodos, Bovkodos, polus, callis, currere, colere, carry with them the notion, active or passive variously, of movement. zpizod- is clearly indicative of movement thrice repeated, whether continuous or in interrupted succession. ‘‘Thrice ploughed” is in such case clearly admissible, although I do not recall an illustrative parallel instance of meA- being used of ploughing. In this context Seebohm (p. 11) furnishes a suggestion: he is writing about the Manor of Hitchin. All the customs of the Manor are of great antiquity; the boundaries are marked according to a form used two thousand years ago, during the Roman occupation, and uninterruptedly from that time to the present period. The common fields of the Manor are six; and it is recorded that these common fields have immemorially been, and ought to be, kept and cultivated in three shifts by rotation—in tilth- grain, in etch-grain, and in fallow. This three-shift system is found established in China, where it has prevailed from time immemorial. It has pre- vailed in England up to the time of our grandfathers. Eng- land contains (say) ten thousand parishes; and up to 1844 a very large number of Enclosure Acts—perhaps about four thousand—have been passed. The Enclosure Acts, as is well known, dealt with common land, and put an end to both the tenure and the system of common cultivation. The custom was therefore very ancient, and has been very extensive. Now, in the Scutum the rich nature of the soil bars the need of increased ploughing. Sour and stiff soils require the plough to be run up and down them to admit air and sunlight, that the land may be sweetened: a good soil does not need such physic. It is dubious, also, whether triple ploughing has a very high antiquity, or whether such ploughs as Colonel Leake conjectures to have been used in the Homeric period are fit for the deep ploughing suggested by tpiroAov and its context. It suggests itself to me that tpizoAov is the three- shift system, indicated by an epitheton constans, and grouped with the epithets descriptive of the soil itself. If this sugges- tion be admissible, the famous Ploughing of the Fallow is a picture which may have been true of the Common Field of Hitchin a century ago. Note, in continuation of the main argument, a considera- tion based upon Il. xxii. 489: GAXou yap ot arouvpyrovat apovpas— On which Paley (in loco) makes the note: ‘ droupyoovow, ‘will take away,’ a future from dzavpdw, or rather from an aorist droupeiv regarded asa present. . . The future does not occur again in Homer.”’ Brucuer.—Land-system of the Iliad. 27 Autenreith, s.v., says: ‘‘ dovpyoover, fut., eripient (-aipdaw), or aroupiccover, amovebunt terminos (otpos).”” The passage is, then, ‘‘for others will take away his landmark; will intrude upon and usurp his land.” L. and 8. adopt dz-ovpicoover as the reading in this place. Ridgway follows. The difficulty about dmaé Acyopeva felt by Phrynichus arises in the case of dz-ovpyoovor. The form is conjectural ; the meaning is still more conjectural. The question is, What is otpov? In the Dictt. there are SIX words of this sound—otpor, ovpos, oupor, ovpos, ovpos, oupos —and under the head of the first ofpov we find in all Dictt. the following references :— Il. xii. 421-424: GAN’ ws 7’ aud’ ovporcr dv’ avépe Snpiaacbov erp’ ev xepotlv exortes, eriEvvw ev Gpovpy @ 7’ odtyw evi xwpw epilynrov rept trys, ds dpa Tovs di€epyov eraAéces* This is Englished by Lord Derby,—- “As when two neighbours in a common field Each, line in hand, within a narrow space, About the limits of their land contend, Between them thus the rampart drew the line.” Another more significant passage is I]. x. 351: GAN’ ore by fp’ Grénv Oocov 7 eri otpa TéAOVTAL npovev (at yap te Body tpodepeotepar eiatv Axéeuevan veroto Babeins rnktov apotpor). On which editors, as to otpa zéAovra Hplovuv, are in diffi- culty. A third illustrative passage, I]. xxiii. 431, 443 :— oooa b€ dtoKov oupa KATWILAOLOLO mwéNovra. (So far as reach the casts of a well-hurled quoit.) In all these cases otpov is a land-measure. Men are disputing about the ovpa of their land. (I do not think Lord Derby should be reckoned in evidence either way ; his translation does not aim at critical accuracy). They hold the measures in their hands : Or they are playing quoits, and go a fixed cast called ovpov : Or mules are ploughing, and, being nimbler at the plough, they do in the same time more work than do the oxen; and it seems that the work in a fixed time (say a working day) between headland and headland—that is, the total width of the land ploughed—is called oépor. Consider the circumstances and context of the following reference: Diomedes and Odusseus are prowling about at night; they meet Dolon, who is also out on a midnight 98 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. errand, and resolve to kill him. They step aside somewhat from the beaten track, and allow him to pass by. As soon, however, as he had got away from them an otpoy they start to catch him. He immediately hears the thud of their feet, and stops to listen. Take it that otpov is a furrow-length, surely this is an unwonied start to give a man, unless your furrow is very short: again, at a furrow-length sound would scarcely reach his ears. Not to press the words into too literal a mould, we may infer that, as a standard of measurement, ovpov means a shorter rather than a longer distance. In Od. viii. 120, seqq., a foot-race is described, and the successful competitor beats the others by the measure otpov nprovouv—not a long distance, for they were all swift-footed ; they stir up the dust of the plain as they go. Clearly the measure is a fixed, if somewhat loose, standard of reference, like pistol-shot, stone’s-throw, lump of chalk, bit of string (fathom), bow- shot, ear-shot. So have I heard the great splashes of rain fresh-fallen on a sun-baked pavement compared i in size to eighteenpence. The distance of an otpov, either as a start or as a finish, cannot be great. Dolon gets an ovpov start, and the Pheakian athlete wins by an ovpov. The word clearly comes within the scope of a short measure of some kind. I take it to mean a measure of width. Ina similar way our forefathers used “rod” or ‘‘rood’’: so many furrows lengthways multiplied by so many rods breadthways make an acre. Our forefathers knew nothing about a standard-acre any more than they knew a standard-mile. An Irish mile is a painful distance for a weary traveller to contemplate; a German acre is a puzzling thing to calculate. The English, the Flemish, the German, the French ell present a pleasing variety: they take their rise from the length of a man’s forearm, but how I do not know. otpov May be cognate with the Ionic etpos—a word not found in the Iliad, once in the Odyssey. etpos is used of width on the grand scale, as e.g. of big rivers, but without any approach to definite significance. otpov is used, however loosely, to indicate a unit of measure. Hence we explain the otpoy dpovpys as the side-marks and not the end-marks of a field : the balks and not the headlands (téAcov apovpys) of a man’s share in the common field. If this be so, we arrive at an ancient system of landmarks or measure- ments arising out of common rights in common land. The width of the otpoy will, of course, depend upon the length of the furrow. Now, a Furrow is a measure of length better known as Furlong. (Por-ca, according to Columella, was, in Spain, a measure i length : porea seems to have been a rustic word, and by false analogy i is used to indicate a ridge. Colum., ii. 10, 6, used atAaki~ew as equivalent to wporcare. BextcuEer.—Land-system of the Lliad. 29 Im-pore-a-tor, qui porcas in agro facit arando: ad Virg., G.1, 21. Furh, furuh, furhi, furrow. Similar words are lira, balc, rig, link, ridge—all indicating the action of the plough.) The furrow is of varied length, but quarantena, a late Latin word used in agriculture, goes to show that forty units of some unknown length constitute the furrow-long. All the ancient village fields of England are divided into acres, furlongs, and rods. The oldest English Bible uses eceras for fields. The acre is a furrow of 40 rods long multiplied by an otpos of 4 rods: the ancient acres vary according to the lie of the ground cultivated. There is in some places in England a measurement of land called shot or lot, and many such are mentioned in the plan of Purwell Field, Hitchin (Seebohm, p.2). These are called ‘‘long shots” and ‘short shots,’ with regard to which Seebohm points out that the average length of the shot is roughly identical with the statute furlong of 40 poles. Aristarchus explains otpos, otpov (s. Il. x. 351) by reference to the fact that mules, being nimbler than oxen, will plough more land between starting-time and sunset. They are mpopepéotepar, and the otpa in such a case are wider than the otpa of oxen. Evening is ox-loosing time, the day is over when the day’s work is over: this is the ancient basis of reckoning ; while generally, in the history of nations, the day’s work either of a yoke of oxen or of the men who work with the oxen has given rise to the words used in the measure of land. Thus actus, being the drive of the plough through the soil, is used to signify the balk between fields, and also a measure of 120 feet (40 yards): jugerwm, containing so many actus, is the day’s work of a yoke of oxen. Mappa is 40 perches by 4 perches, and is used of a day’s work. ‘‘ Yoke,” ‘ virgate,”’ << bovate,” ‘“carucate,”’ arise from a similar method of calcu- lation. <‘‘Carucate”’ is a holding such as can be worked by a full plough-team of eight oxen; ‘“ virgate,”’ the work of two oxen; ‘‘bovate,” the work of one ox. What determines the measure ? «This, too,”” says Seebohm (p. 124), ‘‘is explained. Accord- ing to Welsh law it was the measure of a day’s co-ploughing, that is, twice the work done by an ox between starting-time and mid-day.’’ Hence we have in O. Fr. jurnel, LL. jurnalis, Germ. morgen, all equivalent to an acre. It is necessary, in all these and similar references, to clear the mind of the influence exercised by the daily use of fixed standards or measures. All words are loosely used in the early stages of national life: it is vain to search for strictness of meaning in the words employed by men locally separated, although using the same speech, if separation is maintained by fear or by mountains. As the Homeric words of measure- 30 Transactions.—Miscellancous. ment are few and scattered, so they are indefinite. They indi- cate both process and result: as actus signifies both a balk and a measure of length, so otpos, in Il. xil. 421, seqq., is used of result, and is translatable ‘‘ balk,” ‘‘ridge,” “rig,” or “link,” while in Il. x. 351 it indicates a process: the number of furrows a yoke of mules can lay down in a day, measured breadthwise, is an otpov, which may be thus translated ‘‘ rod ”’ or rood.” The general argument, summarised, is as follows :-— Wealth is reckoned in kind, not in land. The epithets descriptive of a wealthy man do not include the notion of land. KA*pos in the Iliad does not indicate severalty im land: «Ajpos may be illustrated by the Italian possessio. The Common House, Il. vi. 248, indicates a probable common-land system. Tprodov is held to refer to the three-shift system of tilling the soil. Ofpov is held to mean a balk or ridge in the common field. The scene in the Scutum Achillis is held to be a scene of common toil in a common field. The conclusion is that in the Iliad the land-system is most probably a common-field system, in which, however, the beginnings of severalty in land may be traced. This brings us to the Ténevos. Grote and others have held that in the Scutum Achillis a full proprietary system is revealed. Grote (ii., p. 108) illustrates further from Od. vi. er Or dpi de Tetxos eAacoe TOAKL, Kal edE(pwaTo olKoOUS, Kal vnous eroinoe Gedy, Kal Caccat’ apor’pas’ which William Morris translates,— «« And he drew a wall around the city, and the houses he upreared, And the shrines of the gods he fashioned, and the fruit- ful acres shared.”’ Grote thinks here that the King of Phxakia is handing out land in inheritance, and that there was fixed property in land. édccaro does not carry so much with it. The words are quite consistent with the theory of allotment of land from the com- mon land. The réwevos is undoubtedly land assigned or land seized. It is cut off or enclosed primarily for sacred purposes, ulti- mately as private property. The features of the acquisition of landed property in the early stages of society are everywhere the same. Land is held in severalty either by acquisition of grant, or acquisition of seizure. The chieftain takes possession of choice bits of land: he subsequently asks his subjects to register his decision. So, in the scutum, the Bacwdeds stands like a fine old English gentleman viewing his young men and De Zoucue.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 31 maidens at work. At the same time the broad acres being ploughed in the compartment of the shield next to that depict- ing him and his réuevos are not his. That he ultimately swallows the acres, ploughmen, and all, is matter of common historical knowledge. But in the Iliad his réevos is a little patch which his subjects or his peers grant him out of the common stock. For him, and his descendants according to the spirit, ancient language finds it hard tocoin a suitable name. Where is the word which to the Italian, or to the Greek, comes quite so glibly as to the Englishman his much-used word “ land- lord”? It is not dominus, nor possessor, nor herus, nor Searorys, NOY KAnpovxos, Nor BacrAevs. Arr. I1].—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. By Isatan DE Zovucue, M.D., Address as President of the Otago Institute. [Read before the Otago Institute, 12th November, 1889.} Ir will help us to better understand the widespread revolution in pathological views or doctrines occasioned by the discovery of bacterial agency in disease if we glance at some of the theories which were formerly held regarding the nature of disease—theories which still lurk in the belief of certain classes of the people, just as old styles in dress and old-fashioned modes of speech are found amongst them long after they have become obsolete in the centres of fashion and learning. At an early period in the history of medicine disease was attributed to alterations of the humours of the body. Hippo- crates, born about 450 years before Christ, who has been justly styled “the father of medicine,’ described certain humours known later as the ‘‘ cardinal humours,’’ to the de- rangements of which he attributed various diseases. The humours, according to Hippocrates, were four— namely, blood, phlegm or mucus, yellow bile, and black bile. He held that in order that the body should be maintained in health these humours should be mixed in just proportion as regards quantity and force, but especially that they should be well mixed; that disease results from excess or defect of any of these humours, or from its separation without having been duly mixed with the others. Thus, our word ‘“ melancholy,’ meaning in Greek black bile, denotes an affection in which black bile is supposed to be in excess; a ‘‘ phlegmatic” tem- perament characterizes those in whom the cold or phlegmatic watery humour is overabundant ; while the word ‘“ dyscra- sia,” meaning a faulty admixture (of the humours), is still used 32 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. in medicine to signify an unhealthy habit of body. Hippo- crates speaks of remedies which act on particular humours— some on bile, others on phlegm or mucus. Even in our own day we have our cholagogues and hydragogues—terms which have been handed down from these teachings. He attributes most fevers to bile. The humours were supposed to be at first crude, then they underwent digestion—or coction, as it was called—and the diseased fluids were expelled by a crisis. It was a beginning of what is known as the humoral pathology, which has influenced medicine up to our own times. This theory of pathology is, indeed, still in favour at certain hydro- pathic establishments. Prolonged wet-packing, by interfering with the normal functions of the skin, produces an artificial eczema, and when the watery or purulent rash appears the patient is informed that it is a ‘crisis,’ by which the bad humours of the blood are escaping. It is worthy of note that Hippocrates attributed the first cause of diseases to the air (zvetpa, spiritus). Air was believed by ancient philosophers to contain the vital principle (spiritus vitalis), from which it was to be inferred that diseases were caused by some abnormal spiritus in the air, although Hippocrates admits that some diseases may be produced by errors of diet. Great influence in the causation of disease was attributed by Hippocrates and his successors to the time of the year, sum- mer and autumn being the seasons when fevers were in the ascendant. The constitution of the atmosphere was held to determine in some degree the constitution of the reigning diseases. The observation was perfectly correct, although the manner in which atmospheric conditions influence disease could not be then understood—nor do I by any means assert that they are yet fully understood. ‘To this I will refer later, when speaking of epidemics. It might be of great interest to trace the slow steps of the growth of medical knowledge, but this would lead us away from our subject without conferring any present benefit. Medicine had its dark ages. Its practice became strangely mixed up with astrology, incantations, invocations, and charms. Here and there was a spark of light from some original thinker, whose means of research were, however, insufficient to enable him to place his views on any sound basis. Theories reigned in place of facts, and medicine had to await the de- velopment of auxiliary and sister sciences before she could even distantly hope to attain the position which I believe she is now rapidly acquiring—namely, that of an exact science. But a word about the later theories. The chemical theory of disease prevailed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with which the name of the clever, egotistic, semi-scientific charla- tan, Paracelsus, is associated. Its supporters referred pro- De Zoucue.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 33 cesses of disease, as well as those of health, to ordinary chemical laws. To these were opposed the vitalists, repre- sented by Van Helmont (born 1577 or 1578), who attributed disease to the disturbances of the vital spirits. These were termed archeus, or, as there were two chief vital principles, archei. They reigned in the stomach and spleen, and domi- nated the body therefrom, delegating their powers to satraps or minor archei, for the other organs. The belief in a ‘vital principle ’’ has prevailed since the beginning of medicine, or of biology as a science. The arteries were supposed to con- tain air, the origin of life, and to convey with it, or in it, the vital spirits throughout the body. Huppocrates, as already mentioned, held the theory of a vital principle, which he believed was in the air, and was drawn in by the breath. Eyen in the seventeenth century there was not much advance on the Hippocratic pathology. The great English physician, Sydenham (born 1634), attributed the origin of acute diseases to a latent and inexplicable alteration of the air infecting the bodies of men. He speaks of peccant matter, its concoction, fermentation, and despumation. The humoral theory was opposed by that of the solidists, who referred all diseases to an affection of the solid parts of the body. They held that the solids alone were endowed with vital properties, and alone could receive the impression of agents tending to produce disease. So far for the general theories which influenced medical thought and practice for centuries. They were destined to be undermined or modified by the more accurate study of human anatomy, which had received such an impetus from the labours of Vesalius (born 1514), in the middle of the sixteenth century, the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey (1616), and especially by the use of the microscope, which Leeuwen- hoeck improved materially, and employed in physiological and biological investigation, with important results, towards the end of the seventeenth century. Pathology, which may be called the physiology of disease, began to emerge from the cloudland of theory into a clearer day, but there were still many things obscure, and which required better methods than were then at command for their elucidation. The phenomena of inflammation especially occu- pied the attention of pathologists, who believed that in these lay the key to many or most of the morbid changes in the body. Inflammation, from being regarded as a disease, came to be understood as a condition of an organ or part induced by some irritation—a process sometimes conservative, sometimes destructive. And recent researches have shown the importance of a correct understanding of this process, for in studying inflamed tissues with the aid of the microscope the 3 34 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. property possessed by the white blood-corpuscles of wandering outside of the vessels was discovered, and also their power of removing substances deleterious to the system, bacteria amongst others. In order, therefore, to be able to follow up the fate of bacteria which find their way into the body, or the fate of the body into which bacteria have been introduced, it will be necessary to direct our attention for a moment to some of the phenomena of inflammation. For our present purpose it will be sufficient to consider the blood, the irritated part, and the blood-vessels in its vicinity. The blood consists of water holding in solution albumen, fibrin, and various salts, with an infinite number of minute cells suspended or floating throughout it. These cells are the red and the white cor- puscles. With the red blood-corpuscles we have nothing to do for the moment. I+ is the white corpuscles, or leucocytes, which claim our attention. The white corpuscles are soft- bodied globular cells about z;4,5in. in diameter, composed of protoplasm, and possessing a nucleus or nuclei and nucleoli. Sometimes vacuoles are seen in their interior. They have been aptly likened to the Amceba. The Amceba is the simplest form amongst the protozoa. It consists of a minute mass of jelly, a simple cell without organs—unless the nucleus be an organ, or the vacuoles which may appear at any time. It possesses the power of movement by shooting out ‘portions of its protoplasm, which serve as arms or feet (pseudopodia). It nourishes itself by investing any small body capable of affording it nutriment with its protoplasmic substance, sur- rounding the morsel with its body. It can reject any in- nutritious or noxious particle which it may have enclosed, by simply withdrawing its body from the particle, and leaving it outside. The analogy between the Ameba and the white blood- corpuscle, or leucocyte, seems complete. The leucocytes are little particles of protoplasm, monocellular, and nucleated, and sometimes vacuolated. They are endowed with the power of movement by means of little feet-like processes which can be shot out and again retracted. They can take particles of foreign matter into their interior and digest them or reject them, just as the Amceba can do. We have thus living in our blood little cells possessing a life of their own, having the faculty of movement with which our will has nothing to do, of selecting and digesting food, and, as we shall see after- wards, the - power of. avoiding some matters which would act as poison to them. And now a few words with regard to inflammation. The definition of Celsus as to the external characteristics of in- flammation reigns to this day in our text-books—namely, “redness and swelling, with heat and pain’—* Rubor et DE Zoucue.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 35 tumor, cum calore et dolore.”’ To be brief, the redness is due to increased flow of blood to the part, the heat to increased oxidation of tissue, and the pain to pressure on nerve-endings. The smaller blood-vessels, termed capillaries, dilate, yet the blood flows slowly, and has a tendency to stagnate. The swelling is caused partly by the increased blood-supply, and partly by the pouring-out from the capillary blood-vessels of a thickish, glutinous, watery fluid termed liquor sanguinis, or lymph, which under certain conditions becomes changed into matter or pus. The examination of lymph showed it to con- sist of water, albumen, fibrin, and salts, while under the microscope could be seen spherical nucleated cells termed lymph-corpuscles, which are identical with white blood-cor- puscles. The origin of white cells in the liquor sanguinis thrown out by the blood-vessels in inflammation was by no means clear, but a discovery of the highest importance, destined to throw light on this matter, was made by Dr. William Addison, of Malvern, about the year 1843. This was one of the great dis- coveries in physiology or pathology, and deserves special men- tion. Dr. Addison saw the white corpuscles migrating from the minute blood-vessels into the tissues outside. His observa- tions were published in the Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association of 1843 and 1844*, which can probably be only found in some of the large medical and scientific libraries in the United Kingdom or in the United States, so that | am unable to give any details of his work. His discovery was fully confirmed in 1846 by Dr. Augustus Waller, an English physiologist, who watched the process of inflammation in a frog’s tongue placed under the inicroscope. His method and description are very complete, and the illustrations give great exactness to them. The mere exposure of the tongue speedily excited inflammation, so that he had the opportunity of seeing the increased flow of blood, and the process of exudation of liquor sanguinis; and now he was able to see the white corpuscles moving slowly against the wall of the small blood-vessels, then coming to a standstill, and finally squeezing themselves through the coats of the vessels with their peculiar amoeboid mode of progression, first forcing an arm through, and then, by degrees, the whole body, while the hole through which they had emerged closed *(1.) William Addison, M.D. ‘‘Experimental and Practical Re- searches on the Structure and Function of Blood-corpuscles, on In- flammation, and on the Origin and Nature of Tubercle in the Lungs,” — Prov. Med. Surg. Assoc. Trans., vol. xi., 1848, p. 233. (2.) ‘The Actual Process of Nutrition in the Living Structures demonstrated by the Microscope, and the Renewal of the Tissues and Secretions from the Blood thereby illustrated.”’—Op. cit., vol. xii., 1844, pp. 235-306. 36 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. again like indiarubber softened by heat. The full significance of this discovery could not be perceived at the time. The fields of physiology and pathology were still practically unexplored, and the migration or diapedesis of the blood-corpuscles could only be registered as a fact to be made use of on some future occasion. It was one of those discoveries which prove the value of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, the scientific worker, with far-seeing vision, looking forward to the time when facts apparently isolated, and to the untrained mind of little value, will find their connection with other facts and form a continuous chain of knowledge. Dr. Addison’s discovery was lost sight of for nearly a quarter of a century, when the migration of the white corpuscles was rediscovered by Cohnheim (1867), who studied the process of inflammation in the mesentery of a frog, and added valuable newly-observed facts to the pathology of inflammation. Now, what could impel these white corpuscles to wander out from their natural element? Were they driven by the vis a tergo with the blood-stream? What are these white cells? Here, however, we must leave them for a time, as a novelist some- times leaves important characters introduced in his earlier chapters, while others occupy the scene, to bring them all together for the dénowement at the end. A few words more concerning theories of disease, and I shall be able to enter on the more immediate subject of this address. The origin of fevers has at all times exercised the minds of physicians. Even up to quite arecent period, twenty years ago, there were some who maintained, and there may be still, for aught I know, some who believe, that certain fevers— typhus and typhoid, for instance—could be generated de novo, and without infection, direct or indirect, from an individual suffering from fever, by privation, fatigue, dirt, and overcrowd- ing. This is the doctrine of heterogenesis from the clinical side. On the other hand, there were some, even as long as fifty years ago, who believed that a specific poison was handed down by descent from a similar poison, and was received into the system, where it multiplied and ‘‘fermented,” and was finally cast out by a crisis. It was the old doctrine of crudity, coction, crisis, and despumation a little farther advanced. The theory of an impure state of the blood gave place to one more definite—namely, that of a specific organic body as the poisoning agent —but it was understood that this poison was spread, | and infected human beings, by means of the atmosphere. I am indebted to Dr. Aitken’s work on medicine for the fact that in 1838 Boehm attributed cholera to the presence of a fungus affecting the intestinal epithelium, and he gave drawings of microfungi which he found. These Ds Zoucue.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 37 could hardly have been the true microbes of cholera, but the idea of a vegetable parasite was there. In 1840 Henle pub- lished a remarkable paper, ‘‘ On Contagion and Miasma, and Miasmatic Contagious Diseases,” in which he “ concluded, from theoretical grounds, that contagious diseases must be caused by organized contagia, which he considered were pro- bably of the nature of low vegetable organisms. He further added that these parasites need not necessarily be so small that the magnifying-power of our microscopes was not suffi- cient to demonstrate them, but perhaps they escaped obser- vation only because of the difficulty of distinguishing them from the surrounding tissues—a supposition which has been brilliantly confirmed by the discovery of the tubercle-bacillus.” —(Fehleisen.) This was the real beginning of the bacterial or ferment theory of disease. As already stated, however, the origin of fevers de novo was maintained by some as late as thirty years after this, and the extraordinary sporadic oceur- rence of fevers under circumstances which appeared to pre- clude the possibility of infection in the usual sense seemed to lend confirmation to this view. Before the theories started by Henle were entertained, the word ‘‘ parasite,” in connection with disease affecting the human species, was understood to apply to distinctly animal organisms, such as entozoa; later the term was extended to the fungi of certain diseases of the skin and. hair, such as ringworm. The word ‘ fermentation” had long been in use to denote the febrile process. What was called the effervescence or ebulli- tion of the blood, by which terms the older physicians cha- racterized its condition during the continuance of the high temperature in fevers, before the crisis, was believed to present some analogy with the process of fermentation in vinous or malt liquors, although the exact nature of alcoholic fermenta- tion was still known to or suspected by but few. In 1842 Dr. William Farr introduced the word “ zymotic ’’ to designate the poison of specific fevers; but he did not consider the febrile process to be absolutely identical with ordinary fer- mentation, and even then it was held that the ferment-pro- ducing body was or might be some nitrogenous organic substance without more exact definition. While physicians were seeking for the poison of fevers, chemists were endeavour- ing to discover the cause of alcoholic fermentation. The vegetable nature of ferments was ascertained and asserted by Cagnard de Latour in 1837, but the fact had not obtained acceptance by the scientific world. The theory that ferments were due to an organized body was definitely settled by the researches of M. Pasteur (1857-60), who, in 1857, described the little globules or short segments of the ferment of lactic acid, and in 1858 those of alcoholic fermentation, and came 3 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. to the conclusion that there were specific ferments, each pro- ducing its own specific fermentation. The teachings of M. Pasteur created a new interest in the search for the ferments of the zymotic fevers. In 1850 Rayer discovered little filiform bodies in the blood of animals which had died from anthrax or charbon. This discovery slept until 1863, when Davaine inoculated rabbits with blood con- taining these filiform bodies, with the result that they died of anthrax. The little cylindrical rods of butyric fermentation were described by Pasteur in 1861, and Davaine says that it was owing to Pasteur’s demonstration of the connection between these ‘‘ corpuscles’? and the butyric fermentation that he conceived the idea that anthrax might be caused by the corpuscles seen in the blood in anthrax. Thus slowly, by years of clinical observation, by years of chemical, micro- scopical, and botanical researches, the fons et origo mali was found. Physicians, chemists, and biologists had, each in their own department and working in their own way, contributed something to this result. And now the search for specific bacteria in disease may be said to have fairly begun. Hitherto the efforts of the believers in the parasitic—7.e., bacterial— origin of diseases to discover the microbes had been rendered futile by difficulties connected with the means of research. The habits, if I may use the term, of the bacteria were unknown ; their behaviour to chemical reagents—in short, the whole scientific method connected with the investigation of their life-history and microscopical demonstration—had to be built up almost from the beginning, and errors unavoidable in the investigation of a new and difficulf science had to be elimi- nated. These difficulties have in the case of many of the specific bacteria been overcome, while other bacteria whose existence was before strongly suspected are being constantly added to the list of those that are known. Cohn showed that bacteria arose in solutions of decaying animal matter, and placed them among the vegetable organisms. But the admis- sion of bacteria to a place in the natural kingdoms as inde- pendent living organisms was not to take place without a war of words and scientific tests. As it was believed by clinical physicians that fevers could be generated de novo in an unhygienic environment, so more than one distinguished biologist has argued that bacteria may arise by natural laws and reactions in solutions of organic matter. This opens up the question of so-called spontaneous generation in general; and the subject did not escape the attention of M. Pasteur, who, in 1860-61, after carefully- conducted experiments, came to the conclusion that ‘all organized productions of infusions take their origin from cor- puscles which exist in suspension in the air.” He says in Dr Zoucus.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 39 another place (1860), “‘ What would be most desirable would be to conduct these studies far enough to prepare the way for a serious investigation as to the origin of various diseases.” M. Pasteur’s experiments and words such as I have just quoted set Davaine thinking about the connection between the rods seen by Rayer in anthrax and the causation of that disease, and had for immediate effect the experiments in antiseptic surgery by Lister, which have been followed by such brilliant results. We are thus brought back to the views of Hippocrates and his successors as to the zvedpa or sprites in the air with which we inhale the origin of disease as well as the principle of life. We have here, too, the explanation of what Sydenham, in the seventeenth century, termed the “latent and inexplicable alteration of the air infecting the bodies of men.”’ The views of Bastian may be given as those of one of the most recent supporters of the doctrine of heterogenesis. In a solution containing organic matter he describes the aggre- gation of minute portions of protoplasm—the plastide particles —in a film—the proligerous pellicle; and he maintains that ‘bacteria are produced as constantly in a solution of colloidal matter as crystals are produced in a solution containing crys- tallizable matter.”” He says, in his conclusions, ‘‘ Both obser- vation and experiment unmistakably testify to the fact that ‘living’ matter is constantly being formed de novo in obe- dience to the same laws and tendencies as those which deter- mine all the most simple chemical combinations, the qualities which we summarise under the word ‘ life’ being in all cases due to the combined molecular actions and properties of the aggregate which displays them, just as the properties which we include under the word ‘ magnetism’ are due to particular modes of collocation which have been assumed by the mole- cules of iron.” Bastian, however, neglected to sterilise his flasks by passing them through the flame, and the omission was sufficient to discredit his conclusions with the scientific world. The balance of scientific opinion at the present day is very largely in favour of biogenesis as applied to the origin of bacteria, as well as to all forms of life ; indeed, the doctrine of omnis cellule cellula is all but universally accepted. Davies (quoted by Hirsch) says, ‘‘I would as soon believe in the spontaneous generation of human beings as I would in the spontaneous generation of typhus.”’ The real discoverer of bacteria was Leeuwenhoeck, of Delft, born A.D. 1632. Without entering into any detailed description of bacteria, which may be found in any of the systematic works on the subject, it will be necessary to give an outline of their general characteristics in order to the better understanding of the manner in which they settle and multiply 40 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. in the bodies of men and animals, and of their relation to disease and its cure. The word “bacterium,” the latinised form of Baxrjpov, and meaning a staff, refers to the appearance under the microscope of one division of micro- organisms, from which the name has been distributed to designate these small beings in general. The term ‘microbe,’ used by the French, indicates a small living thing. They have been alternately classed as animals and as plants. Ehrenberg, in his work on infusion-aninalcules, published in 1838, described them as animal forms, their power oi movement, as he says expressly, leading him to place them in the animal kingdom. Under the microscope some forms are seen to dart across the field with very rapid movements ; others have spiral, corkscrew, or vacillating or undulatory motion. Cocci have molecular or ‘‘ Brownian’ movements. Many kinds of bacteria are motionless. The exact place of bacteria in a biological classification may be held to be still undetermined. They have been placed among the fungi, inasmuch as bacteria consist of vegetable cells destitute of chlorophyll, and they have other characteristics of fungi. Other observers consider them as alge, from the fact that some species do contain chlorophyll. Looking on them as plant-forms, perhaps the safest classification is that which refers them to the Thallophyta, in which Sachs places them. Other biologists place them in a separate order, which they term the Proves to be considered as between fie animal and vegetable kingdoms. At the same time, as de Bary says, “it is merely a matter of convention in the case of these simple organisms where and how we shall draw the line between the vegetable and animal kingdoms.” Bacteria consist of cells which are, so far as is known, destitute of nuclei. In form the cells are globular or ovoid, or elongated as cylindrical or spindle-shaped rods. The globular and rod-shaped forms have mostly a diameter of "001 of a millimetre, or about z;1,,in. The length of the rods is from two to four times the transverse diameter. Chemically the cells are composed of protein or mycoprotein, and have a distinct cell-wall, which possesses distinct physical and chemical properties from those of the cell-contents. Various classifications have been made. The classification of bacteria hitherto most commonly followed is that of Cohn, who takes the form of the bacteria as the basis. He gives four classes: 1, Spherobacteria, globular; 2, Microbacteria, short rods; 8, Desmobacteria, long rods; 4, Spirobacteria, spirals. This brings us to the terms used in describing bacteria. The globular cells are called cocci, from xoxkos, a berry, and from which, again, we have micrococcus and macrococcus. De Zoucue. —Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 41 Two cocci attached to each other are spoken of as a diplo- coccus, while several cocci attached to each other in the form of- a chain are called streptococcus, from ozpérros, a chain. Then there is the vibrio, or bentrod ; the spirillum, a corkscrew form ; bacillus, a long thin rod, &c. Bacteria multiply by fission and by spores, or by cells which act as spores. From their mode of reproduction by fission they are called schizomycetes or fission-fungi. Bacteria require for their nutrition nitrogen, carbon, potassium, sodium, and phosphoric acid, while water is neces- sary as a medium for the changes operated by them. Their food is obtained from organic compounds, which they have the faculty of splitting up, but they also grow in solutions of tartrate and acetate of ammonia. Some require the presence of free oxygen; hence Pasteur makes two great divisions of bacteria into (1) aérobic, and (2) anaérobic. Their growth is affected by the soil in which they happen to be planted ; also by temperature, by contact with oxygen, &c.; in other words, by their environment. Thus the bacillus of anthrax and the micrococcus of fowl-cholera, so malignant under ordinary circumstances, have been rendered harmless by cultivation in neutralised chicken-broth with a supply of oxygen and in a heightened temperature; or, as some assert, through the action of the heightened temperature alone. Just as human beings and animals may become stunted and deformed by starvation and want of light and warmth, so may bacteria become altered in form, andl exhibit a sickly grow th; or, on the other hand, with suitable food and other accessories they may grow luxuriantly. We find similar phenomena in the higher plants. ‘Bishop Heber mentions that in the Botanical Gardens at Calcutta he saw a wretched little oak kept alive with difficulty, under a sky and in a temperature so perpetually stimulating that no time was allowed it to shed its leaves, or to recruit its powers by hibernation.”’* Bacteria which grow in living bodies are termed parasites; those growing in dead bodies or decaying organic matter are called saprophytes. That fungi can be parasitic in living bodies we have a striking example in the Cordiceps, which grows at the expense of the caterpillar which it infests, filling the body with its myce- lium, and causing the death of the animal. Some bacteria— as anthrax, for example—can live and vegetate either as para- sites or as saprophytes; and, further, they can live in decaying vegetable matter, such as potatoes, and this is a special source of danger to animals, which are thus lable to become infected by their vegetable food. They have distinct pre- ferences as to their host, resembling in this respect many * “Geograph. Distrib. of Plants.” Relig. Tract Society. 49, Transactions. —Miscellaneous. animal parasites. Age influences the predisposition of the host. Young plants are more susceptible to the attack of fungi than older ones; and we all know how much more prone children are to catch scarlatina, and measles, and whooping-cough than adults, and how much more liable they are to be affected with animal parasites. Again, as to pre- ferences, in a consumptive family all the boys may escape and the girls become consumptive, or vice versd, or all the mem- bers of a family but one may escape. So, during an epidemic of cholera or of typhus many individuals may be exposed to infection, but the bacteria select by preference those whose tissues are weakened, and so predisposed for their reception, or which are unable to resist the invasion. Others, again, accommodate themselves in various species of host, as the tubercle bacillus for instance, which can live in man, mon- keys, cattle, fowls, &c., just as the common mistletoe is able to graft itself on trees so widely different as the apple-tree, the willow, the oak, and the fir. Bacteria have also preferences as to the part or tissue of their host, being found in that part in which the conditions are most favourable to their life and growth. The bacillus of cholera selects the intestines, the spirillum of relapsing fever is found in the blood. In the same way animal parasites choose their home in their host. The Trichina spiralis, being introduced into the intestinal canal, bores its way into the spaces between the fibres of the muscles, while the liver-fiuke finds out the channels leading to the liver, where it sets up its home for the time being. Bacteria obtain entrance to the body with the air that we breathe, with our food, and also through wounds. And now we have to consider, in what way can the pre- sence of these minute organisms cause disease? First, they act as foreign bodies. It is an axiom in surgery that the pre- sence of a foreign body is sufficient to produce inflammation. A familiar example of this is the inflammation caused by a grain of sand in the eye. Inflammation is necessary, however inconvenient to the individual, and its use we shall see pre- sently. As parasites, bacteria of course live at the expense of the tissue in which they grow. If they merely absorbed the juices of the part the changes effected by them would only consist in lessening the nutritive substance, and the mischief caused by them would be represented merely by the loss thus occasioned. But they act as ferments, and it is this action especially which is the cause of disease. And here it may be as well to define what is meant by the word “ferment.” A ferment is de- fined to be a body which causes a change of composition in organic compounds without itself forming any part of the resulting products. The alcoholic and acetous fermentations Dr Zoucur.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 43 have been known from the earliest times—that is, by their pro- ducts—but the discovery of the vegetable nature of ferments began with that of the yeast- fungus ‘by Cagnard de la Tour in 1828. It was reserved for M. Pasteur to show the exact rela- tion of the bacterial ferments to their specific fermentations. While the term ‘‘ferment”’ is very commonly applied to the bacteria, or vegetable organisms causing the fermentation, it is now used by many to indicate a substance secreted by the bacteria which is the real ferment or enzyme. This substance may be separated from the bacteria producing it, and cause fermentation, or the bacteria may be destroyed while the fer- ment remains active. The mode in which the enzyme, or ferment, acts is by the formation of leucomaines in the body, or ptomaines in de- composing animal substances. Our knowledge of these bodies being comparatively recent, I may be permitted to explain that ptomaines are basic bodies resembling alkaloids, de- veloped in decaying animal matters. It may perhaps be right to call them alkaloids. The alkaloids resulting from the de- composition of albumen in the living body are called leuco- maines. The poisoning caused by tainted fish, or by ‘ high”’ meat, is due to ptomaines, and the cramps and spasms of cholera are believed to be caused by the ptomaines—or, perhaps rather, leuacomaines—formed by the comima-bacillus in the intestines. Many of the ptomaines and leucomaines are intensely poisonous. EPIDEMIOLOGY. The discovery of bacteria as the cause of disease will doubtless in time elucidate many of the difficulties connected with epidemiology, and perhaps enable us to account for the rapid spreading of an epidemic fever, or its appearance in places far away from the presumed source of infection, or for its spontaneous disappearance. There is, perhaps, no question in connection with the infective fevers of greater interest or importance than that of their mode of spreading as epidemics. The occurrence of cholera in India, for instance, is justly re- garded with alarm throughout Europe and America, for with the constant travel and commerce the bacillus is sure to find its way westward and northward. Hitherto the knowledge we have had of epidemics has been chiefly confined to the his- tory of their outbreak and of their line of march, and of the fatalities occasioned by them, while as to the occurrence of sporadic cases of disease we were thrown back on the theory of generation de novo. Influenza, for instance, epidemics of which have been recorded from the year 1173 up to the pre- sent time, and which are tabulated in the learned work of Hirsch, is found to travel from east to west, sometimes spread- 44 Transactions.—Miscellancous. ing so widely as to merit the title of pandemic. Whole countries have been stricken suddenly. Thus, in the epidemic of 1836, during the month of February, influenza appeared in Saxony, Bavaria, Lower Austria, North Italy, Spain and Portugal, France, &c., and this at a time when travelling-com- munication was not easy or rapid. Again, it has appeared on board ships which had sailed several days previously from un- infected ports. It has occurred at all seasons and in all weathers, hot, cold, moist, and dry. We might suppose that the germs were blown by the wind like an army of locusts, and such a theory may perhaps hold good for some diseases ; but influenza has travelled from east to west during a westerly wind. Can it be carried by birds? This might seem a far- fetched idea, but, without advancing it seriously, the theory is not quite unreasonable. In his experiments on fowl-cholera M. Pasteur showed that the microbe which produced the disease, if introduced into a guinea-pig, caused merely a local abscess, perfectly closed in by what is called in pathology a pyogenic membrane. The guinea-pigs affected suffered in no way in their general health. The abscess opened of itself, closed again, and the part healed perfectly. But fowls and rabbits living in the same coop or yard as these guinea-pigs were liable to be infected with the disease, which speedily proved fatal to them. M. Pasteur remarks, ‘‘ An observer of these facts, ignorant of the line of descent of the microbe in this instance, would be astonished to see fowls and rabbits decimated, and might believe in the spontaneous origin of the disease, for he would be far from supposing that it had had its origin in the healthy guinea-pigs, especially if he knew that they were subject to the same affection.’ He says, further, ‘How many mysteries in the history of contagions will one day be solved in a much simpler manner than that which I have just mentioned!” Thus the germs of diseases fatal to one species of animals may be car- ried in the healthy bodies of a different species. As illustrating some of these mysteries, let us take the course of an epidemic of cholera. The onset of the epidemic is often sudden, and the disease quickly spreads, becoming general in a city or county, but curiously sparing certain localities, even some reputed to be unhealthy. At the height of the epidemic the majority of those attacked die. By degrees the disease declines, both as to the number affected and to the severity of the symptoms, and now there is a great number of recoveries and the disease disappears. Sometimes it returns, however, as if capriciously, raging with quite as much violence as during the former visitation, and again declines and disappears. I do not mean to say that all epidemics follow this course, but that the invasion of cholera Dr Zoucue.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 45 will illustrate some of the peculiarities of the visitation of epidemic disease. Questions will arise as to why the disease should be so much more fatal during the middle or height of the epidemic than toward the end. Bearing on this question is the fact that certain bacteria may, under special conditions, develope intense virulency. Pasteur found that the virulence of rabies became greatly intensified by passing the virus through a series of rabbits; and in swine-plague, if the microbe is inocu- lated into a pigeon and from this passed through a second pigeon, and from the second to a third, and so on, the microbe became ‘“ acclimatised”’ in the pigeon, ‘“‘and the blood of the later pigeons in the series proved much more virulent to the pig than even the most infective products from a pig which had died of the so-called spontaneous swine-plague.” Other conditions by which the virus may be modified or destroyed are temperature and the admixture of chemical solutions with the nutrient material, while the virus may be altered accord- ing as the bacteria grow in the living body, or out of the body on decomposing matters—that is, as parasites or saprophytes. The bacillus of cholera has been cultivated in gelatine and on potatoes by Koch, and he is of opinion that it can reproduce itself and multiply in decaying animal matters outside the human body. It certainly would appear that the germs of cholera, on being transplanted to a district hitherto unaffected, develope intense virulence. While we are not in a position to give a categorical answer to the question proposed, we see what circumstances might happen to a bacterium by which its virulent properties may be preserved or even intensified. Each specific pathogenic bacterium has its own conditions of tem- perature, moisture, and nutrient substratum, in which it best flourishes and produces disease, and future researches will doubtless determine what those conditions are for each bac- terium outside of the laboratories of investigators. One fact, however, has been well established witi regard to zymotic— that is, bacterial—diseases—namely, that they have a pre- ference for individuals whose bodies are in a low state of vitality -—a fact known long before the discovery of bacteria. I referred at a former part of this address to the supposed influence of the seasons in the causation of certain epidemic diseases. This is expressed at the present day by the term ‘‘ epidemic constitution”’ of the season or year. One year we find pneumonia prevalent, another year pleurisy, another typhoid. With our present knowledge of bacteriology we may explain the occurrence of particular epidemic constitutions by .the fact that specific bacteria happen to find at such times the temperature, moisture, and nutrient material—that is, the human body—under fit conditions for their development ; and 46 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. as long as these conditions exist, so long will they flourish and the diseases continue. Another question arises—namely, Why should an epidemic finally disappear? This brings us to the subject of the attenuation of bacterial virus. It may perhaps be possible to stamp out an epidemic on its first appearance, and before it has spread, by vigorous hygienic measures; but when it has obtained a firm hold in a densely-populated city stamping out becomes practically impossible. Such diseases as cholera, re- lapsing fever, and typhus rage like a wide-spreading fire, and are more difficult to extinguish or limit. A fire will, of course, become extinguished when the inflammable material is all consumed; but epidemics decline spontaneously without at- tacking all who might be susceptible. I use the word ‘ spon- taneously’ provisionally only. It would be difficult to believe that the subsidence of the epidemic was due to increased energy in sanitation, for, to all appearances, the conditions may still exist in many parts of the large towns which are usually held to invite zymotic disease. The word “attenuation,” as applied to the virus of an in- fectious disease, is understood to mean that the germ or bac- terium causing it exists in such a condition that it only produces a poison of mild variety, or that its poisonous pro- perties have been totally extinguished. The most notable example of attenuation is that of the virus of small-pox by inoculation. Inoculation for small-pox was practised in India and the Kast for centuriés before it was known in Western Europe. Introduced into the body in this way the disease was certainly attenuated ; but, several deaths having occurred from the inoculated disease, and vaccination with cow-pox lymph being found to be safe, inoculation was made illegal by Act of Parliament in 1841. It is more than probable that many deaths used to occur from inoculation owing to the want of proper precautions in performing the operation, the neces- sity for which precautions was not then understood. But, not- withstanding the occasionally fatal result of inoculation, it is established that in the great majority of cases the disease was rendered milder than when contracted in the ordinary way. This was an instance of attenuation before the nature of the virus was understood. M. Pasteur, having observed that fowl-cholera in the natural state is not always fatal, concluded that the virus occurred in variable degrees of intensity; and he noted also that fowls which recovered were not again, or, at least, rarely, subject to a second attack. It occurred to M. Pasteur that by artificially attenuating the virus the disease might be rendered milder. By making successive cultures even of the most virulent micrococeus in chicken-broth at pro- longed intervals, he was able to produce a true “ vaccinal”’ De Zoucue.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 47 virus, which being inoculated into fowls not only does not kill but actually protects from the fatal form of the disease. M. Pasteur communicated these results to the Academy in 1880. Anthrax, also, has been attenuated by M. Pasteur so that he was able to produce virus of different degrees of virulence-— a virus which produced anthrax in sheep, cows, and _ horses, but did not cause death, while it was still fatal to guinea-pigs and rabbits, and, finally, a very attenuated virus, ‘which had lost its virulence for guinea-pigs and rabbits, and protected them against an attack. Further, he was able to keep up the artificial cultivation of the microbes, now rendered inoffensive. But an important exception must be made in the case of guinea-pigs, for the attenuated virus was found to be fatal to a guinea-pig one day old, and the virulence could again be restored by inoculating a series of guinea-pigs, until in the end it was strong enough to kill sheep, and M. Pasteur does not hesitate to say that it would kill even cows and horses; or, as M. Roux expresses it, the bacillus can be made to reascend the steps of virulence down which it has come, and so be rendered once more virulent. Swine-plague virus is fatal to rabbits, and the virulence increases a hundred-fold by passing it through a series of rabbits. But, according as it becomes most deadly to rabbits, it also becomes attenuated for the pig, and may be used to protect that animal from the disease. Some of the questions regarding the cause of epidemics and contagions and their virulence or mildness are thus treated by M. Pasteur. He says, ‘‘The above facts may help to ex- plain the appearance of these plagues. An epidemic which has been extinguished by the weakening of its virus may light up again by the strengthening of this virus under certain in- fluences. ‘The accounts which I have read of the spontaneous appearance of the plague appear to me to offer examples of this: witness the plague at Benghazi in 1856-58, where the outbreak could not be traced to any origin by contagion. Plague is a virulent disease peculiar to certain countries. In all those countries its attenuated virus must exist, ready to take on its active form whenever certain conditions of climate, of famine, of poverty again appear. There are other infective diseases which appear spontaneously in all countries: such is the typhus of camps. Without doubt the germs of microbes, the authors of these diseases, are spread about everywhere, . . . ready to become dangerous when, under conditions of overcrowding, and of successive development on the surface of wounds in weakened bodies, or otherwise, their virulence be- comes progressively strengthened. . . . What is a micro- scopic organism which is innocuous to man or to some particular animal? It is a being which cannot develope in our body or in 48 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. the body of that animal; but nothing proves that, if the microscopic organism penetrates into another of the thousands of species in creation, it will not take possession of it and render it diseased. Its virulence, thus strengthened by suc- cessive passages through individuals of that species, might at length attain a condition in which it would be able to attack large animals—iman, or certain domestic animals. In this way new virulences and contagions may be created. I am greatly inclined to believe that in this manner have appeared in the course of ages small-pox, the plague, yellow-fever, &c., and that owing “to phenomena of this kind certain creat epl- demics appear, such as typhus, just mentioned.’ This mention of the subject of attenuation and vaccination would be incomplete without some notice of M. Pasteur’s method of treating hydrophobia, which occurs in the dog as rabies. ‘The natural disease in the dog might take weeks or months to develope. This length of time was practically pro- hibitive to the experimenter. Judging from the symptoms that the virus would be found chiefly in the central nervous sys- tem, he inoculated the brain of rabbits with a portion of the spinal marrow of a dog which had died of rabies, and, passing the virus from rabbit to rabbit, a virus was obtained infinitely more virulent than that procured from the original souree— 1.é., the diseased dog. By inoculating the virus directly into the brain-membranes the development or incubation of the disease was shortened. It will give some idea of the time and patience consumed in these investigations if I mention that the stage of incubation in the first rabbit was fifteen days. After twenty to twenty-five passages from rabbit to rabbit the incubation-stage became shortened to eight days. This length of incubation-stage was maintained for a new period of twenty to twenty-five passages, when. the duration of incubation be- came lessened to seven days, which was maintained for a series of ninety new passages of virus from rabbit to rabbit. After this the incubation-period is six days, when the virus attains its maximum intensity and becomes ‘fixed.’ By suspending portions of the spinal cord in dry air from one to fourteen days they were found to have lost their virulence in proportion to the time they had been exposed. By very long exposure their virulence became extinct, so that rabbits inoculated with the most attenuated cords—that is, of fourteen days’ exposure—were found to be unaffected with the disease. It was thus possible to procure a virus of any desired strength. Dogs inoculated at first with the fourteen-day cord, on the next day with the thirteen-day cord, next day with the twelve-day cord, and so on, were found to bear inoculation with unattenuated virus, and to be fully protected against rabies, whether inoculated with virulent matter or bitten by De Zoucue.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 49 arabid animal. Dogs and animals so protected are said to have been rendered ‘‘refractory’’ to the virus. M. Pasteur now conceived the idea that if dogs had been bitten by rabid dogs the disease already in the system might be attacked and conquered, and the dogs saved, by inoculating portions of the virus in the same manner. The result bore out his anticipa- tions. Dogs which were bitten and inoculated recovered, others not so protected died. What if this method could prevent hydrophobia in man? On the 6th July, 1885, there was brought unexpectedly to the laboratory of ‘MM. Pasteur a boy named Joseph HSI aged nine es The boy had been bitten in sever the legs and thighs, so that he alee with difficulty. The same evening I "M. Pasteur began the treatment by inoculations, con- tinuing them for twelve days, until he had used a virus only one day old. The result was that this boy, who had the seeds of a fatal disease in his system, recovered perfectly without having suffered beyond the mere wounds. Since the memorable date on which Joseph Meister was treated about 150 persons have come each month to the Pas- teur Institute for antirabic inoculations. Upto the 21st March, 1889, 6,870 persons have been treated there, many of them very severely wounded. The mortality of persons so treated has been 1 per cent., the usual mortality after the bites of rabid dogs being 15 per cent. The success in these inocula- tions is due to the slowness with which the virus after a bite usually reaches the nervous centres. In man the average incubation-stage is six or seven weeks. It may, of course, be shorter or much longer. But should the virus reach the brain and the spinal cord very quickly, by means of the blood- stream, inoculative treatment may be too late. Such cases constitute the 1 per cent. of those treated which end fatally, as in bites about the face. In severe cases the treatment has to be very active, spinal cords a few days old being used almost at once, instead of beginning with cords of fourteen days. And here I let M. Roux, M. Pasteur’s collaborator, use his own words. He says, “‘The most remarkable point, how- ever, in the whole discovery of this preventive inoculation against rabies is that it has been carried out, the virus itself being still unknown, Not only do we not know how to culti- vate it outside the body, but in allowing it really to be a microbe we can do so by analogy, for as yet no one has been able to isolate it. Notw ithstanding this, however, it is daily being attenuated, and made to pass “through the various stages of virulence. Unable to cultivate the or ganism artificially in flasks and tubes, M. Pasteur has been obliged to do so in the rabbit; and so easily and with such perfect 1 regularity are these cultivations in the living animal performed that they are ready t 50 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. each day for use in the inoculations at a specified time, and in the condition of genuinely pure cultivations. There is no stronger example of the power of the experimental method as applied to medical matters than this one of the prevention of a malady the absolute virus of which is still obscure.”” Several antirabic institutions have now been established throughout Kurope and America. The United Kingdom has none, although about fifty British subjects have been treated annually in the Paris Institute since 1886. The restrictions as to vivisection, which in experiments on animals are painlessly conducted, have not only rendered us dependent on Continental countries for advances in biological and therapeutical science, but for the care and treatment of such British subjects as may be suffering from a highly dangerous malady. It is within the range of possibility that a parallel method of treatment may be adopted for other infectious diseases in the human subject. Should this come to pass it remains to be seen whether a false sentimentality, which resists merciful experiments by which thousands of lives of animals, as well as of human beings, may be saved, while it allows pigeon-shooting and coursing to be practised as sports, will continue to triumph over true humanity and common-sense. Before considering the bacteria of specific diseases we will inquire—(1) How it is possible for the body to resist an attack of bacteria ; (2) How does spontaneous cure of fevers occur ? (3) How does vaccination with attenuated virus prevent or cure bacterial disease ? (1.) In answer to the first question, we have now to resume our acquaintance with the white blood-corpuscles, which, as we saw, play an important part in the process of inflammation. What are these white corpuscles? In 1883 Dr. Elas Metschnikoff published some important ob- servations on the intracellular digestion of invertebrates, showing, from his own researches and from those of other biologists, that the ameeboid cells of the mesoderm are cap- able of ingesting and absorbing albuminoid particles. By taking function as the standpoint for observation, instead of merely considering form, he traced the white blood- corpuscle of vertebrates to the same phylogenesis or com- mon origin, as a class or race, as the amoeboid cells of the mesoderm in the Metazoa. It is necessary to call to mind the signification of the terms ‘‘ ectoderm,” ‘‘endoderm,”’ and “mesoderm,” which, of course, mean literally outer layer, inner layer, and middle layer respectively. In the develop- ment of the ovum the cells of the blastoderm or germ divide into two layers, the ectoderm and the endoderm. In the orders above Ceelenterata a middle layer of cells appears, probably derived from the other two. This is termed the De Zoucue.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 51 mesoderm, and in it are found the blood-vessels, muscles, internal skeleton, and the excretory organs. What we have now to: note is that to the mesoderm belongs the vascular system. The mode in which the Amceba envelopes and disintegrates its food gives an example of intracellular digestion. This is the mode of nutrition in the Protozoa, whether singly or aggre- gated together in colonies. In Plumularia the ectoderm cells are able to take up foreign particles, and to eat up dying or dead portions of the animal or colony to which they belong. In the larve of the Actinias also the ectoderm cells have the faculty of ingesting solid food. But already a differentiation of function begins to be observed, and at a later stage of development the number of foreign particles in the ectoderm cells becomes much smaller. The function of intracellular digestion, we shall find, becomes the hereditary property of the amceboid cells of the mesoderm, and in these we should expect to find it in vertebrate animals if it existed in them. These cells have the property of being able to wander about in the body of the animal (as observed by Metschnikoff in Phyl- lirhoe, a transparent mollusc). They devour all dead or dying matter. In the case of large masses to be eaten, or foreign particles to be removed, the ameeboid cells join their forces, becoming fused together in cell-masses termed plasmodia, which are equivalent to giant cells; or the individuals remain distinct, but swarm together in large numbers to the attack. They have a power of selection, eating some objects presented to them and refusing others. Bacteria are attacked and in- gested by them, but occasionally the wandering amceboid cells are killed by the bacteria. These cells thus guard the body of the animal to the best of their power against harmful sub- stances, while they, in destroying foreign or dead matters, are simply feeding, as I surmise, primarily for their own indi- vidual nutrition as independent cell-animals, secondarily for the nutrition of the colony of cells, or animal, of which they form a part. Metschnikoff calls them phagocytes, or eating- cells. Thus, in the lowest animal-forms all the cells are am@- boid, and all are phagocytes; but as we ascend in the scale we find the cells becoming differentiated, some losing the digestive power, while those of the mesoderm retain it. Following up this line of inquiry, M. Metschnikoff has ascertained the existence of phagocytes in the mesoderm of vertebrates. These are the white blood-corpuscles. The power of these leucocytes to wander outside of the blood- vessels has already been mentioned. When the tails of tadpoles are undergoing absorption, amoeboid cells in large numbers may be seen surrounding the muscles and nerve-fibres, which they gradually devour, and 52 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. portions of nerve and muscle may be seen in their interior, where they undergo a process of digestion. When a fully- gorged phagocyte dies it is immediately devoured by another. Parasitic bacteria being injected into the mouse, the white blood-corpuscles were seen to contain bacteria. | Wherever there is irritation causing death or disease of a part, or a foreign body liable to be injurious to the system, the pha- gocytes collect to remove the dead tissues or the foreign body. Thus we have within our bodies an army of soldier- cells ready to repel invasion, and in the case of bacteria frequently with success. The prophylactic function of the amcboid cells is shown by a very interesting discovery of M. Metschnikoff of their behaviour in the Daphnia when it is attacked by a yeast- like fungus. The Daphnia being transparent, he was able to see these cells collecting and investing the spores, which they digested and rendered innocuous. Here we see one way in which the body may resist an attack of zymotic disease. Sometimes, however, the spores were able to overpower and kill the leucocytes, causing the death of the animal. In the septicemia of mice the white blood-corpuscles endeavour to destroy the bacilli. They take them up into their interior; but they find themselves in the position of the husbandman who cherished a snake in his bosom. Koch says, ‘‘ The bacilli multiply very quickly in the cell, which they burst and destroy, and are then taken up by other leucocytes, only to work the same ruin, so that in a short time the majority of the white blood-corpuscles are occupied by bacilli.”’ (2.) How does spontaneous cure of fevers occur? It has been mentioned that the growth of many bacteria may be arrested by introducing certain chemical solutions into the medium in which they are growing. The properties of iodine, earbolic acid, and corrosive Se ie are well known as being inimical to the life of bacteria. There are, of course, very many other chemical germicides. It has been found that certain bacteria form chemical products in their own food- material which are poisonous to themselves and arrest their growth. Thus the bacillus or micrococcus which causes lactic-acid fermentation becomes poisoned by the lactic acid formed, and the growth of the microbe ceases, although the nutrient material is not exhausted. ‘There is some reason to believe that in several diseases, at least, a chemical substance is formed in the blood by the bacteria, which substance, when in sufficient quantity, stops the further growth of the bacteria, or causes their death—that is, if the individual survive long enough. This would, perhaps, correspond to the crisis of the disease. If the poison of the disease have not too deeply impaired the vital powers the individual recovers ; in the con- Dr Zoucue.—Bacteria and their Relation to Disease. 53 trary case, as in malignant scarlatina and malignant cholera, he dies. (3.) The answer to the question as to the cure or pre- vention of a zymotic disease by vaccinating with attenuated virus may now be perceived. On such theories or facts is founded M. Pasteur’s treatment of hydrophobia; and it is claimed that anthrax, typhoid, and septicemia can be pre- vented by injecting into the blood some of their poisonous products. The presence of these substances in the blood alters it in such a way as to render it an unfit soil for the erowth of the respective bacteria. The white cells do not always at first take up virulent bacteria, but sometimes with- draw from them; but they can gradually become accustomed to some poisonous bacteria, and are able to devour and digest them if they are first fed with the attenuated virus. We will now glance at a few of the specific bacteria. The first microbe discovered as the cause of disease was, as al- ready mentioned, the bacillus of anthrax. Its life-history is therefore invested with peculiar interest, for the demonstra- tion of its presence and of its infecting-power was immediately followed by a search for specific bacteria in other diseases. Bacillus anthracis is mteresting on its own account, for it is one of the most malignant of the bacteria, and is capable of retaining its virulence under the most varied circumstances. It can grow in living imatter, in dead matter, animal or vege- table. It may preserve its vitality after being frozen in a fluid at —110° C, and the spores may be capable of germina- tion after being boiled for from fifteen minutes to an hour. M. Pasteur found the germs capable of development after they had been kept twenty-two years. Its spores defy the solvent power of the gastric juice. It is capable of attack- ing rodents, ruminants, omnivora, carnivora, birds, and even batrachians and reptiles under certain conditions of tem- perature. Mice and guinea-pigs die in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours after infection with the minutest quantity of virus, and if a drop of blood be examined anthrax rods will be found, so rapid is the growth of the microbe. Man does not escape: anthrax, or charbon, in man is known as woolsorters’ disease. The spot which it attacks imme- diately developes a pustule which is well characterized by the term ‘‘ malignant pustule.” We have here a striking example of a vicious heredity ; but, on the other hand, we have a remark- able instance of the manner in which a vicious strain may be modified, and even totally extinguished, by a favourable en- vironment, for this virulent bacillus may be so attenuated by cultivation in mild nutrient media as to become harmless even to animals ordinarily the most susceptible, such as mice and guinea-pigs. 54 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. This was not only proved by Pasteur, but the experi- ment led to inoculation with attenuated virus as a protection against the disease. From 1882 to 1888 there were 1,700,000 sheep vaccinated against anthrax, with a mortality of 0°85 per cent. The mortality of sheep in anthrax districts has gone down from 10 per cent. to less than 1 per cent., while cattle are also protected by vaccination. M. Roux tells us that insurance companies insert a clause in their agreements by which protective inoculation is rendered compulsory. Anthrax might enter the body of a man through a wound, a scratch on the hands in wool-sorting, or the spores might get into the mouth with dust or with food, and so find their way into the stomach and intestinal tract. The bacillus of tuberculosis, or consumption, was discovered by Dr. Robert Koch. It is one which in all probability may be conveyed to human beings from certain of the lower animals. The milk of cows suffering from tubercle of the udder contains bacilli which can infect animals, and it has been suggested by a distinguished pathologist that such milk may be a cause of tubercular disease of the abdominal glands in hand-fed children. At the recent French Congress on Tuberculosis the conclu- sion was arrived at ‘“‘ that the disease can be transmitted to man from the lower animals by the ingestion of diseased meat and milk.’’ In consequence of this the French Government have made the exposure of tuberculous meat for sale illegal. In the United Kingdom many high authorities have decided that the meat and milk of tuberculous cattle is dangerous to health. It will be small comfort to those who oppose vaccination by humanised lymph on the ground that a blood-poison is intro- duced from another individual, to know that a virulent blood- poison may be taken in with animal food. Monkeys, cattle, rabbits, guinea-pigs, fowls, and, in short, all warm-blooded animals, are susceptible to tuberculosis. Consumption was believed to be contagious in Languedoc, Spain, and Portugal, as Dr. Ellotson, writing fifty years ago, informs us, and also in Italy. In these countries the clothes of a consumptive who had died were burned or buried. The direct infectious- ness of tuberculosis has been amply proved by experiments on the lower animals, and, accidentally, in the case of man. It would, of course, be impossible in one evening to review the various specific bacteria of disease. I must content myself with naming some of the diseases of which bacteria are known to be the cause, or in which full proof—that is, visual proof—of their existence may be looked for any day, as in hydrophobia. These are erysipelas, pneumonia, leprosy, diphtheria, typhus, typhoid, septicemia or blood-poisoning, cholera, relapsing fever, two forms of ophthalmia, anthrax. tuberculosis, TRAVERS.—On Pathogenic Microbes. 5D whooping-cough, influenza, measles, tetanus, yellow-fever, dengue, actinomycosis, &c.; while the fevers of the lower animals are also bacterial in their origin. Many slight febrile affections usually denominated as ‘“ colds,” although perhaps occurring at the height of summer, are most probably due to bacterial agency. Disease-bearing bacteria swarm around us, seeking for bodies in a weakened condition into which to enter, or awaiting their opportunity as saprophytes in moist, dark, unwholesome places, where dead organic matter offers them a resting-place. The discovery of pathogenic bacteria is destined to effect changes which we cannot even now foresee in our quarantine laws, in our public and domestic architecture, in our cookery, in the quality of our animal food, in the breeds of our domestic animals, in our intermarriages, in the disposal of our dead, and in many other ways. Bacteriological Institutes are now being established throughout Europe and America. Their importance in relation to public health cannot be over- estimated; and in new colonies such as these of Australasia, the question of State Bacteriological Institutes is well worthy the consideration of Governments. It would seem that so much is being discovered as to the causes of sickness and the means of preventing it that disease must ultimately become rare, and, indeed, it is true that many diseases are becoming rare. But civilisation is a slow process. Disease in one class of society may affect all classes; disease in one family may affect several families. Nothing but a widespread liberal education, a socialism of knowledge, can ultimately eradicate disease. Art. IV.—Remarks on Pathogenic Microbes, and the Means of preventing Diseases originating im their Introduction into the System. By Wie Ti. ‘Travers; FUL. ‘Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 4th December, 1889.} THE investigations of Davaine, Pasteur, Koch, Cornil and Babés, Duclaux, and others, have conclusively established that many serious diseases which affect man and the most valuable of his domestic animals, owe their origin to the introduction into their bodies of minute vegetable organisms, now known under the generic name of ‘‘ microbes.”” So long ago as 1860 I ventured, in a letter addressed to Sir Joseph Hooker, to suggest that certain symptoms in febrile diseases indicated the 56 Transactions. —Miscellaneous. presence in the blood of something in the nature of a ferment, which I then supposed to be fungoid, those symptoms pre- senting, as it appeared to me, considerable analogy to the results produced by ferments upon saccharine solutions. Sir Joseph did not take any notice of this part of my letter, the bulk of which had reference to questions relating to the botany of New Zealand, and there, so far as I was concerned, the matter ended; and I only mention this now in order to show why I take so much interest in the important investigations to which I have alluded. It must be apparent that the results established by these investigations render it of the utmost importance that there should be a more general knowledge than now exists, of the nature of the minute organisms in question, of their mode of action on man and the domestic animals, and of the circum- stances which lead to or favour their introduction into the body, more especially, as regards the latter point, with a view to the adoption of all possible measures to prevent it. The first to notice the presence in the blood of the class of organisms referred to was Davaine, who, in 1850, found in that of animals which had died of splenic fever quantities of minute rods, to which he gave the name of bacteridia ; but it was only in 1863, when Pasteur had discovered the part played in fermentation by some of the organisms now forming mem- bers of the class termed microbes, that Davaine was led to suppose that these bacteridia were the actual cause of the splenic fever. This disease, commonly known by the name of anthrax, affects man as well as animals, and is one of the most deadly to which cattle and sheep especially are subject. In these animals it is generally produced by inoculation, as, for ex- ample, by the bites of flies which have fed upon the carcases of beasts that have died of the disease, or by the poison coming otherwise into contact with some accidental abrasion of the skin, or with punctures of the mucous coat of the mouth caused by the prickles of plants on which they may have fed. The period of incubation of the disease is extremely short, an ox, apparently healthy at his return from his work, having been known to exhibit symptoms of the disease soon after, and to die within an hour after exhibiting the first appearance of infection. In order to discover why this disease was so common in sone districts in France in which it had been found difficult previously to assign a cause for its spread, Pasteur carried on some experiments, with the aid of two other specialists, and found that sheep permitted to feed on grass upon which bacteridia taken from the blood of diseased animals had been intentionally spread, speedily manifested all the symptoms of TraveRS.—On Pathogenic Microbes. Sy the disease, and died. The glands and tissues of the back of the throat were found to be in the condition which would naturally: result from inoculation by means of wounds, slight, it might be, of the surface of the mucous membrane of the mouth, and, in order to ascertain whether this was the likely cause, grass mixed with thistles, bearded ears of barley, and other prickly forms of fodder, on which bacteridia had been scattered, was given to other sheep, the result being that mor- tality amongst them was rapidly induced. Experiments were then made in order to ascertain how long the vitality of the bacteria was maintained after the death of an infected animal, and it was found that, while by far the greater number were destroyed by the putrid fer- mentation of the carcases of the diseased sheep, a proportion became disengaged by the gas generated during decomposition, and that these, drying up, produced spores “which retained their vitality for a long period, and were so minute and light as to be capable of being transported by even the weakest currents of air. As regards the human subject, it has been found that anthrax, appearing in the first instance in the form of malig- nant pustules, affects shepherds, butchers, tanners, and others who handle the flesh and skins of tainted animals, the disease usually resulting rapidly where there is any scratch or wound in the face or hand. Instances have occurred in which the disease has appa- rently been introduced into man through the mouth or lungs, but human beings are apparently less subject to contract it in this manner than the herbivora, for the flesh of animals killed after the microbe has become fully developed in the blood is often eaten with impunity in the farmhouses on pro- perties on which the disease has been prevalent. It may, however, be said that in this case the microbes are effectually destroyed by the cooking processes to which the flesh is sub- jected. The important researches which were induced by and fol- lowed upon the discovery of the effects of the inoculation of sheep with Bacillus anthracis have, as already mentioned, clearly demonstrated that nearly if not all the most serious febrile diseases which attack man and the domestic animals have their origin in the introduction into the system of special forms of microbes. This has been established in the cases (amongst others) of cholera, typhus, and typhoid fevers, small-pox, recurrent, yellow, scarlet, and intermittent or malarious fevers, and in croup, and also in such minor diseases as measles, whooping- cough, &c., in man, and in thecases of the rouget, or swine- fever, of glanders as affecting horses, of rabies as affecting the 58 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. dog and cat, and of fowl-cholera, and in many other diseases affecting the domestic animals. But whilst we have a special form of microbe concerned in each of these diseases, there are general characters and modes of reproduction common to the entire class, and these have particularly to be considered in relation to the manner in which they are disseminated and to the precautions which have to be taken against infection. The latter points, however, can only be discussed after we have acquired a knowledge of the former, and I now proceed to give such information in this respect as I have been able to gather from the works of Pasteur and others. For some time after the discovery of these singular organ- isms it was matter of doubt, even in the minds of the most careful observers, whether they belonged to the animal or vegetable kingdom, many, indeed, inclining to the belief that they constituted a link connecting the two; but later and more accurate investigations have established that they are purely vegetable, and are, in effect, special forms of Alge. The classification now recognised divides them into eleven genera, most of which have received names characteristic of their respective outward forms; and to one or other of these nearly all the specific diseases I have already referred to have been assigned. As several of these genera, however, are polymorphic, it is not impossible that some diseases may be produced by microbes belonging to more than one genus, although the impression as yet arrived at by investigators is adverse to such a supposition. But, however varied may be the external forms of these pathogenic organisms, they all possess certain characters in common to which I will now shortly reter. In the first place, they all appear under the microscope as minute cells of a spherical, oval, or cylindrical shape, some- times single, sometimes united in pairs or in articulated chains or chaplets either straight, curved, or spiral. The diameter of the largest does not exceed two micro-millimetres, and that of the smallest is not more than a fourth of that size, so that at least 500 of the former and 2,000 of the latter must be placed end to end in order to reach the length of a millimetre, requiring, in fact, a magnifying-power of from 500 to 1,000 diameters, and sometimes even a still higher power of the microscope, to make them clearly visible. “One very common bacterium,” says Trouessart, ‘‘ may be found everywhere, and can be easily procured for microscopic observation, namely, Bacterium termo, or the microbe of impure water. This bacterium is not injurious to health, since there is no potable water in which it is not found in greater or less Travers.—On Pathogenic Microbes. 59 quantity. In order to obtain numerous specimens it is enough to take half a glass of ordinary water from a spring or river, and to leave it for some days on a table or chimney-piece, the vessel being uncovered to allow the access of air. We may soon observe that a thin coating is formed on the surface of the water which looks like a deposit of fine dust, but which, however, consists of myriads of bacteria. If we take a drop of this water and place it under a cover-glass in order to examine it under a microscope with a magnifying-power of about 500 diameters, we shall, as soon as the instrument is properly focussed, see a really surprising spectacle. ‘‘The whole field of the microscope is in motion : hun- dreds of bacteria, resembling minute transparent worms, are swimming in every direction with an undulatory motion like that of an eel or snake. Some are detached, others united in pairs, others in chains or chaplets, or cylindrical rods, which are partitioned or articulated: these are only less mature, or younger, than the first. Finally, we see a multitude of small globules which result from the rupture of the chaplets. All these forms represent the different transformations of Bacte- rium termo, or the microbe of putrefaction. Those which are dead appear as small, rigid, and immovable rods.” In all the various forms of microbe, however, each cell consists of a cellulose wall containing protoplasm. These cells, so long as they continue active, multiply by fission with enormous rapidity, precisely in the same way as in the case of ferments. When, however, the hquid upon which they sub- sist is dried up, the cell-wall dries also, and the protoplasm within contracts and forms a spore, which, being set free by the rupture of the wall, gives rise to fresh microbes by ger- mination when placed under suitable conditions. Pathogenic microbes, then, are extremely minute cells, invisible except under very high powers of the microscope, having walls composed of cellulose, enclosing particles of protoplasm, multiplying rapidly whilst active by fission, and, when no longer capable of increasing in this manner, pro- ducing spores which, on finding a suitable soil, produce a fresh crop by germination. Microbes .themselves and their spcres, as well as the spores of moulds and ferments, are extremely light, and float in the atmosphere amongst the innumerable other particles of matter which reveal their presence to the naked eye by re- flecting light, as may be observed when a ray passes through a narrow opening into a darkish room. LHlaborate investiga- tions have been made in Europe—chiefly in France—with a view to obtain statistical information as to the hygienic condi- tion of the air of towns, according as it is more or less charged with these minute organisms. 60 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. The apparatus used for the purpose is so constructed as to enable the observer to collect, on thin plates of glass coated with glycerine, the particles of dust, &c., floating in the at- mosphere, the collecting-plates being transferred, at fixed intervals, to the objective of a microscope in order that the collected matter may be examined. By means of this process calculations have been made in the various places of observa- tion of the number of microbes or their spores ordinarily pre- sent in given volumes of air, and it has been found that during the damp weather of the winter months, and that part of the summer in which the increased temperature is accom- panied by moisture, they are comparatively few in number, the maximum being reached in the months of April, May, and June, (answering to our months of October, November, and December,) when the summer air is hot and dry, and during cold dry weather in winter, the chief reason for the observed difference in numbers being that during the moister seasons the microbes and their spores settle on the ground, on the leaves of plants, &¢e., where, however, the pathogenic forms are to the full as dangerous as when floating in the atmo- sphere. The difference in the number of spores found by means of these observations under favourable and unfavour- able conditions was considerable, the number under the former frequently reaching 35,000 in a cubic metre of air, whilst under the latter it did not exceed 7,000. But, whether we take into consideration the higher or the lower number, it is clear that the risk of infection is extremely great, especially in places where diseases originating from the introduction of these organisms into the system are known to exist. As instances of the extreme danger resulting from such conditions I might cite the case of hospitals in which large numbers of patients formerly died in consequence of erysipelas supervening upon surgical operations, owing to the atmo- sphere being thickly pervaded with the microbes of that disease, and the case of whole families having been sacrificed, chiefly through ignorance, but too often through that pig-headed dis- regard of the results of scientific investigation which persons, otherwise intelligent, frequently display in relation to such diseases as phthisis and small-pox. Fortunately, as regards our hospitals, the disastrous results produced by erysipelas are now avoided by the use either of Guerin’s protective dressing— adopted in consequence of Tyndall and Pasteur’s researches into the nature of air-germs—or, as is more generally the case, of Lister’s antiseptic treatment of wounds. It will have been gathered from the foregoing remarks that the microbes of the various diseases I have already re- ferred to—which, however, by no means exhaust the list of those that owe their origin to the action of pathogenic germs— TrRAVERS.—On Pathogenic Microbes. 61 must often be disseminated in enormous numbers by currents of air and otherwise, in localities inhabited by persons afflicted with diseases so generated where no special arrange- ments are made to prevent it; and it must be apparent that we have little reason to wonder, looking to the efficiency of the natural modes of dispersion, and the facilities afforded by the structure of human beings and of herbivorous animals for their introduction into the system, at the occasional rapid spread of the more malignant of these diseases, such as small- pox, cholera, malignant “typhus, &e., places deficient in the possession of proper preventive agencies. These agencies are of two nde eee such as free those who are unavoidably exposed to danger of infection from lability themselves to contract the special disease; and, second, such as are calculated to prevent the general spread of infection in places where the disease is present. Of the first kind are vaccination, as in the case of small- pox, and inoculation with the virus of other specific diseases, so attenuated by culture as to reduce it to the condition of a vaccine. The methods by which the latter effect is produced are very interesting, and are entirely due to the wonderful perception of Pasteur, who has demonstrated their efficiency in the cases of rabies, fowl-cholera, swine-fever, and others, though no success has yet marked the efforts made in such diseases as typhoid fever, the glanders of horses, and the in- fectious pneumonia of horned cattle, owing to the extreme diffi- culty of attenuating the microbes of these diseases by culture. But success is not despaired of in these cases, and the process may in time be also applied to others of these forms of disease inman. Pending this, however, it is our clear duty to adopt measures of the second class above referred to. The most important of these are,—first, the isolation of diseased patients, a thing which presents some difficulty in private dwellings; and, second, the immediate exposure to destructive processes of the excreta of the patients, —and when I speak of excreta | use the term in its largest sense. Everything which has come into or which has been even liable to the chance of contact with such patients should be exposed to some treatment which has been proved to be destructive to microbes and their spores, before uninfected ‘ persons are subjected to the risk of contagion or infection, especially where the actual destruction of tainted articles, such as body-linen, bedclothes, &c., is inexpedient or im- possible—as, for example, in the instance of persons who cannot afford the sacrifice. All the surfaces of the rooms in which they have lain should be subjected to similar treat- ment. In order to show the importance of this, Trouessart 62 Transactions. —Miscellaneous. cites the investigations of Wood and Formad, two American physicians of the highest standing, in relation to an outbreak of croup in 1881 at Ludington, a small town on the borders of Lake Michigan. The principal industries carried on there were derived from the neighbouring forests, an immense quantity of the trees of which had been sawn into planks in numerous sawpits within the area of the town. The greater portion of the town stands cn a height, but one quarter is built on low marshy ground, which has been partly filled up with sawdust. In this quarter the soil is so saturated with moisture that when a small hole is dug it fills with water immediately, and consequently cellars are unknown. It was in this quarter that the epidemic broke out, and was most severe, almost all the children having been attacked by it, and not less than a third of them having actually died. When Wood and Formad began their investigations Formad went to Ludington to study the epidemic and collect materials for experiments. In all the cases of croup he found the blood full of micrococei belonging to Micrococcus diphthericus—some detached, others united in the form of zooglaea— that is, agglutinated in small masses,— and others, again, in the colourless corpuscles of the blood. All the organs, and especially the kidneys, were likewise filled with them. With the materials which he gathered he and Wood made experi- ments in cultures, and were able to inoculate rabbits with croup. These inoculations were made subcutaneously in the muscles and trachea, and were followed by the production of false membranes, the animals soon dying with all symptoms of diphtheria, and the blood proving to be full of microcoeci. An examination of living animals showed that the micrococcus first attacked the colourless corpuscles, within which their vibratile motion could be observed. The corpuscles changed in appearance, the granules disappeared, and each corpuscle became so full of the micrococci that they could no longer move. In fact, the micrococci grew until they caused the rupture of the corpuscle, and then escaped in the form of an irregular mass, which constituted the zoogloea. Corpuscles filled with micrococei were found in the false membrane, in the small vessels—which they dilated and coinpletely oblite- rated—and even in the marrow of the bones. Cultures made in flasks afforded important results. A comparison of the sowings made with micrococci collected at Ludington with those found in the ordinary diphtheritic angina, (then and still common at Philadelphia,) showed a great difference in the vitality and virulent properties of microbes derived from these two sources. The former multiplied rapidly and energetically, succeeding each other up to the tenth generation ; while those from Philadelphia only went to the fourth or fifth generation, TRAVERS.—On Pathogenic Microbes. 63 and those taken from the tongue did not go beyond the third. The diphtheritic angina of Philadelphia is much less fatal than croup, and the first attemps at inoculation made by Formad and Wood produced doubtful results, precisely because they were made with the microbe of diphtheritic angina, which is an attenuated form of the microbe of croup. The organism is the same, but it is modified by the medium in which it is developed, and the vitality of artificial cultures is in direct proportion to the malignity of the disease from which the germs for sowings are derived. I cite this instance in order to show the importance of preventive measures of all kinds. Now, the sewage system of every town should be so arranged as to insure that such parts of human and other animal excreta as usually find their way into and are carried off by the sewers should be discharged from them in a manner to insure the practical annihilation of any germs with which it is charged. It is, as I think, the unquestionable duty of our medical men, to whom both their patients and the public naturally look for advice and instruction on these points, not merely to physic the former when they find them prostrated by diseases of the foregoing classes, but also carefully to inquire into the con- ditions by which they are surrounded, and to suggest such precautions in favour of those who have not yet been attacked as may be calculated to ward off danger of infection. It is also, as I think, their duty as a body to pursue investigations of the kind now being carried on in Europe in connection with the diseases in question, with a view to acquiring such a knowledge of air-germs and the microbes of earth and water as may enable them intelligently to decide on the causes of epidemics, and to recommend, with the full strength of their authority and knowledge, such steps as may tend to avert their occurrence. And it is the duty of those who are charged with the control of matters affecting the public health to obtain and act upon the advice of persons of acknowledged eminence and skill in relation to the modes to be adopted for promoting it, instead of allowing their counsels, as is unfortu- nately too often the case, to be presided over by the foul gods of Hocus-pocus, Hugger-mugger, and Higeledy-piggledy, with Presumptuous Ignorance as the high-priest. 64 Transactions.-—Miscellaneous. Art. V.—The Newly-opened Cave near Sumner. By Joun Mzzson, B.A. [ Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 3rd October, 1889. | Plates I. and IT. In accordance with a suggestion thrown out at our last meet- ing that some authentic particulars should be gathered re- specting the cave recently discovered on the road to Sumner, Mr. H. O. Forbes, as representing the Museum authorities, and myself, as representing this society, made a preliminary visit of inspection on the 10th September last. My coadjutor is at present very fully occupied with official work and altera- tions at the Museum, so it has been agreed between us that I am to write a general description of the cave and its contents, siving some account of its whereabouts, geology, and dis- covery, while he will supplement my remarks with notes on the bones found, some of which seem to be probably of a new species of Natatores. I must mention that Mr. Monck, the proprietor of the ground on which the cave stands, when we introduced our- selves to him and stated our object, showed us great civility, and assisted us as far as he could in the work of investigation, He exhibited to us everything that he had obtained from the spot in the way of bones, implements, and other remains, and very liberally handed over to us for further examination and future deposit in the Museum such of these as we found to be the most interesting. He also gave us an account of all that he had done or knew about the discovery of the cave, and offered to facilitate its more complete exploration if funds were provided for such a work and it should be thought desirable. It is perhaps to be regretted that action was not taken in the matter, either by our society or the Museum authorities, a little earlier, because there are some questions—in connection with the date at which the moa became extinct, the people who were in the habit of hunting it, the customs, food, and utensils of the native tribes who successively used the cave as one of their dwelling-places, and the flora and fauna existing here at the period when it was known and frequented—that a careful examination of the different layers of deposit, under the direction of a scientific mind, might have materially helped to solve. It is not by any means too late yet to do something in the matter; and I am glad to say that a small sum has been already placed at the disposal of Mr. Forbes for the purpose of systematic digging and search. Gransugtions Dem Benlayh Anstitute, Vol. xXxrr. Pl. Sho i _ 7 ues we : | Yiag S$ wl y See poor lg ae a AS eters . ‘99 Facin Za: > s SECOND CHAMBER 7 / A o ste 9 O DV wm w sje yo Bae A SPA iesl oil outieaiieee iat S | = ¢ ; N ee S]e an eqeg a JM dele. CHeP Trt GROUND PLAN ot MONCKS CAVE. SUMNER . aaa ra) 0 lt doin 3 ne vittaotssiet bite: at uaa fit “ote porate NGhtKts ind 78 spe hseeboitssingne Walcli Ipoh: b gees ae aN ein ron ate gy WAY cet bs with: pbavahese uss ‘a. radi ute ican thio seer eh poasetT NK: Sachi, oat babiahtet: HALES eiyths STURS ath as 4 icant Parte Abn TE ae: % eee % aie we Bb TLS Tt Sind a? Bnalegena att tye hi faindieabaeen Rb sadione: iS eats sia reloethi SABE Wows een i varied ft OSH hie (vata yi yie rk rk Maeens ATG tet bi taal TY shfadetcy ) Ok, rs i t Pun te HL #3 oe see tery chats dite here Ae x fa HUE Obaie eihene wots Ate BBM» Ponedapords lat! latins, Peat arany ty sited | riseye i Tet REPRE RS ehlow EE Wo AIFOK eis 2 aati Sra sn epivtkos wen set hog: We APPS eit rf Riverinitcl, tiger fen ‘ ig Se espe rath: ter mt sieitony ’ wep itt ee pet ote heard Biteay Thee sat nh Sek Seba pee ec pkey hey srist: aul eitiy. a paths aa ar eke yy sk” PORTAGE Woy elie nee tol sarah rf [MLSE ri ma Ch LsseurueNs fp se 4 inods Ott, Traine Beil; age pych a liey Ptah e890) htt ‘i RIES, yn Ya oa RG Se eR UNY LIB ints abet Reale ‘fiom 4 Boe re _giteolctirtaiyy oo Bedi boabne Sa beckdsetneane 4 7° Arup daa i otainod, Siege. Ly Seathag dis Grarieitl Maer wihkso Orthos: oe i Ano ott . 3 me Remy ihlonnte “hype brtaayci lads sasorid & odko cons BD yo hitbeacitg gl Be onc ribnen ti Aad wtiend ie Oddipnras slit Poa Carl ae RR a De ak sulgites besa, tod ted Sr stic Levinas astuldvaqusrap aie aah gray Ae Mv weve Vanmiesiad | o2tly isakoiet tanta: ielpidodyn Tai hrs TRL ‘ostiy! aks Vee trots eae) ? ifr ye ‘ett totee: ponsielb cet Wad ted: paaing EA a. aves nik peat yen aieegial ward ale eh aes ‘ SLI eet cide th i. Hse sachets ate ‘uj Sa ae boat: hi habiad Me ney 1 tariiidstsl oyhd epee nt at a’ se 19 aight 1) HO ag a iA hs passer fade! abi ae. wey roe An ay besrigwerba ett peveiet BV eer zny) B Bea yak ae oinsest wt tock eR perecieriiss Legs Fenn Mitte eit whi cca Harn fits the Gitahitiny ee ctrisebist Ag hii? same ucweherte ial daitord bhaven Senos fiat aeriNeg Hae. eee SS Meu ETL aAe 2 netiathy Sys 3 Lees ebay ness) viiod: Toe ie oaalatbi eee ab vagie pe LO Sigh age: Ey urriagsicees- dacite i> RG ihe sie Araitc 2 Aaa mi ht BTIAGTRe core Vee Losb eit aioe: aah Wi ir Ab ere SH tat se, friorying: sae ined ang eh cite carbo RTs. eels hae AE Walshe cvew! 4p ibe a sti his Iki sa hiya sane deat’ fei ahr 4 Br tic ole Seg Co da) bs sag : ; ATRL ESD Say may a pie home ge Kul 4 * * ry Merrson.—Newly-opened Cave near Sumner. 65 Although the cave is not so large as that at Moa Point, there is one particular in which its investigation should be more profitable and interesting. The Moa Point cave, in and about which researches and excavations were carried on, under the direction of Sir Julius von Haast, during the spring of 1872, had apparently been continuously open for a very long period. The Maoris had occupied it from time immemorial as an occasional dwelling-place for their fishing-parties, and since 1839 it had evidently been used by Europeans as a shelter for cattle, or a place of temporary habitation by hme-burners, road-makers, and fishermen. Now, in contrast with this, it must be remembered that it is only a few weeks since the mouth of Monck’s cave was first laid open. Forty years ago there were a good number of natives about Banks Peninsula, but they knew nothing of this cave. It had been buried a very long time, perhaps some hundreds of years, before the settling of Canterbury, or the natives in question would have had their traditions about it and its whereabouts. For exactly how many years it had been thus sealed up, secured by a mountain of loose earth and stones from the ravages of successive occupants, we at present cannot say; indeed, it is difficult to venture a conjecture on the subject, though it may be possible to do so after a thoroughly careful and intelligent examination of the cave, the deposits therein contained, and the various articles imbedded in those deposits. When it was lately broken into, therefore, the cave was, in all probability, just as it had been left on the morning when the Maori who used it went off on that fishing, hunting, or marauding excur- sion from which he seems never to have returned. Perhaps he was killed in fight, or perished with his frail canoe off the bold headlands to the eastward. He certainly did not die in the cave, or his skeleton would have been found there; and he just as certainly did not intend to go away without returning, for in that case he would not have left behind him such well-fashioned and, to him, valuable instruments as those which have just. been found. Possibly, however, he was not shipwrecked at ail, and met with no particular misadventure, but simply found that while he was absent a landslip had occurred which had so completely buried his old home that his superstition or indolence, or both combined, indisposed him to dig a fresh opening to it. There are some circum- stances about the contents of the cave—more especially the kinds of wood and stone of which the tools and other articles are made—that seem to point to the fact that its last occupants were from the North Island. Perhaps they were Maoris who were in the habit of coming so far afield in their canoe or canoes every summer for the purpose of fishing, and hunting the moa. In that case it is easy to conceive that during one 5 66 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. of their absences in the winter the landslip occurred which, as far as they were concerned, for ever buried their habitation. Whatever explanation be accepted to account for the desertion of the cave and its contents, this remains certain: that when it was opened by the road-makers a few weeks since it was practically, except as to the decay of some perishable articles, and the amount of débris fallen from the roof here and there, in the same condition in which it had been hundreds of years ago. ‘This consideration makes it the more regrettable that any digging whatever took place before some scientific man with special ability for such excavations tock direction of the proceedings. Nevertheless it must be stated that Mr. Monck, in so far as he himself has carried on the work up to the present, has done his best to preserve everything of value ; but he, naturally enough, did not preserve a record of the exact spot, or depth, or layer from which each article had been obtained, so that the several questions of relative time at which various deposits were made can with difficulty now be answered. The discovery of the cave was made quite accidentally. Metal and gravel being constantly needed for the Sumner Road, Mr. Monck has for a long time allowed the stuff to be taken from one of his paddocks, as it lay in a heap, apparently having fallen down from the cliffs above. A mass of stuff, 40 yards through, was thus removed, and while clearing this away the opening of the cave was laid bare. The first person to enter was the son of the proprietor, and he when he got some distance in saw two bright eyes glaring at him from the darkness. Immediately after a cat was seen to emerge from the cave. It had entered, most likely, only the night before, through some crevice which the workmen had laid open but not observed, or possibly through some other opening from the surface of the hill into a remote part of the cave not yet explored. The latter supposition seems justified by the find- ing of a number of rabbit-bones upon the floor. The geological aspect of the cave seems to be precisely similar to that of the one at Moa Point. It is a hollow in the doleritic lava formed by the washing-away of loose material between the harder rocks. There are probably many more such caves between Christchurch and Sumner, and in other parts of Banks Peninsula. We are told that the peninsula was once an island—that it was first uplifted by Titanic force from the depths below, that it was subsequently depressed about 20ft., and then raised again to about its present level. When the huge volcanic mass was depressed, the low-lying lands between Sumner and New Brighton were entirely under water. The Pacific breakers dashed against cliffs which are now miles from the sea, and everything in the shape of tufa Mrrson.—Newly-opened Cave near Sumner. 67 and other loose material which filled the exposed crevices or lay at the foot of the lava rocks was washed away. This is Sir Julius von Haast’s explanation of the origin of the Moa Point Cave, and it is equally applicable in all respects to the cave now exposed. The two are only half a mile apart, the latter being the farther from Christchurch. They are similarly situated in every respect as regards elevation above and dis- tance from the sea, and, singularly enough, each is, or was, exposed to the north-east, and protected from the north-west by a similar point of rock. This, perhaps, accounts for the formation of the caves ; for the exposure of both points to the full force of the north-east breakers would facilitate the wash- ing-out of loose rocky material; and perhaps the protection from the north-west—that is, the land side—gave these par- ticular cave-dwellers at a subsequent time the privacy and security which, among such a people, when every man’s hand was against that of his neighbour, were matters of no slight inportance. Like the Moa Point Cave, this of Monck’s also consists of three chambers, but of smaller dimensions. They are, how- ever, more equal in size to one another. As the front of the cave was coveted up by loose material, so are the floors of its chambers, to the depth of how many feet it is at present diffi- cult to say. These figures must be left for subsequent careful measurement, as also the levels of the floors, the heights of the chambers in different places, &c., and also the exact nature of the material of which the débris consists. This is only intended to be a preliminary notice: a much fuller and more exhaustive report, more amply satisfying curiosity, and more thoroughly examining the various interesting questions on which excavation will throw light, should certainly be undertaken as soon as can be done conveniently. Generally speaking, it may, however, be said that the débris covering up the bottom of the cave consists of a mixture mostly of shell, and fragments of rock and heaps of grit and scoria fallen from the roof. Here.and there, however, can be clearly traced layers—in one place as many as five—of various thickness from lin. or in. to 6in. or Yin. These layers are of volcanic ash at top, and the débris of fires (ashes of wood, dirt-beds, &e.), intercalated with a kind of silt or loess earth, apparently identical with that found here and there all round the peninsula. The second cave contained as its floor-covering nothing but a 3ft.-thick bed of this silt or loess. As to the relics, &¢., found either on the floors of the cave immediately when it was opened, or since by digging here and there in a very haphazard sort of way before the day of our visit, in so far as pertains to the numerous bones, whether of fish, or bird, or mammal, Mr. Forbes, as I have mentioned, has 68 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. promised to follow me with a particular description. Merely remarking, therefore, that the quantity of fragmentary bones of fishes and of the moa shows that these were the animals principally eaten by the natives inhabiting the cave, I pro- ceed at once to specify what things other than bones have already been brought to light. Enough have been found to make the nucleus of a small museum. Such articles as a fisherman needs for the pursuit of his craft are tne most common. ‘T'wo objects first attract attention, because of their size and more finished workmanship. These are a well- made paddle or steer-oar of kauri(?), 74ft. long and 64in. across the blade, and a nicely-carved unique-handled scoop of totara (?), 15in. by 8in., for baling the water out of a canoe. These are the articles referred to above as having been found immediately when the cave was opened, in a sort of natural cupboard or cleft in the rocky side of the outer chamber. Then there is a large piece of wood, that may have been part of a canoe or perhaps a sort of frame or pole for supporting a fish- ing-net. It is 6ft. long and has three groups of holes in it, each group containing four holes. There are also over thirty fish-spears of bone, of several sizes, from din. to lin. in length, and of different patterns, some notched on both sides, some only on one; a number of stone sinkers up to 3tin. in diameter, and generally of sandstone; floats of pumice-stone; fish-lines of plaited flax; and pieces of net. A large number of stone implements have been found—over a dozen adzes, some highly finished, some very rude, one (a fragment) so broad and massive in the polished portion as to remind one of the domestic flat-iron, and to suggest the probability that it was used for smoothing or polishing rough surfaces; others with very fine sharp points, as though intended to be used as awls for boring holes in wood, bone, or stone. There are, besides, a nuwnber of greenstone chisels, one gouge-shaped ; and the large quantity of pieces of obsidian, fragments of basalt, and flakes and blocks of chert or flint shows that such rude stone tools as the denizens of the cave required they were in the habit of fashioning on the spot. We found also a fern-root pounder of wood, 14in. long; a beautifully delicate needle of ordinary size, 14in. long, of bone, with the eye perfect; fire-lighters 9in. long; and a comb 5in. long, 24in. across. The latter article is at the present time very brittle and somewhat decayed, like the other wooden implements in the cave. It was found in fragments, but must at one time have been of considerable strength, or it certainly would not have been serviceable for the purposes for which it was intended. Great handfuls of human hair were also found, one coil plaited, two or three wrapped in flax, mostly very dark in colour, but some light as the auburn hair of Furopeans and carefully tied ; and feathers of various birds, Merrson.—Newly-opened Cave near Suniner. 69 mostly aquatic, fragments of skin of different kinds of Phocidie, with the hair still attached, and a large quantity of shells of apparently the same species as are now found on the beaches in this neighbourhood. Besides these there are many frag- ments of wooden implements, all very brittle with age, the precise nature and purpose of which it will be difficult to decide. But all are evidently of Maori manufacture—nothing whatever of European origin has been found; clearly showing that the cave gives us, so far as it goes, a faithful photograph of the original Maori life. Some of the articles have apparently been intended for ornament, as certain little articles shaped like the chele of a crab or lobster, and others of the shape and size of a penny-piece with a hole through the centre, and a beautiful greenstone pendant, with a hole bored through it. How this was perforated it is difficult to conceive, for even now lapidaries can only bore greenstone with diamonds, as the metals will not mark it. One article would almost lead to the belief that the Maoris made toys for their tamariki, or pickaninnies. It is a fairly- well-carved image of a dog, about 4in. long. Its tail is so curled up as to form a ring, by which it ould have been sus- pended either as an ornament or charm. It may, however, have been only the handle of some implement or weapon, for there are few articles in this collection bespeaking a frivolous existence. Most of the things were such as would be de- manded by hard necessity, and bespeak a life that ‘‘ scorned delights and lived laborious days,” though not in the poet's sense exactly. Of such would be the firesticks (kawwahi), apparatus for lighting fire by rubbing one piece of stick in the eroove of another (of which there are several specimens), the fern-root beater (patuaruhe) aforementioned, pieces of spear, fragments of the parts of a boat, and so forth. Many of the frasments are more or less charred, and there is other evidence that in different parts of the first chamber of the cave, and at different times, cooking was usually done, and fires often kept burning. It only remains for me to say that the entrance to the outer chamber is easy enough, scarcely involving stooping. Inside, above the débris, the ‘roof is arched, and at least LOft. in the clear. To explore the middle chamber it is almost needful to glide snakewise; but once in, and in the centre, and you have a space above the floor 15ft. in the clear. As for the third chamber, that practically is unexplored. The approach to it is 10ft. long, and very narrow and circum- scribed, and an arch of rock is before the entrance. It is almost filled with débris ; yet it was evidently once much frequented, for the lava stone which forms the doorway is worn perfectly smooth at all exposed points, as if by human 70 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. being or other animal daily or hourly passing to and fro and rubbing against the sides. It is more than likely that this was for centuries, perhaps, the abode of sea-lions, the seclusion of such a retreat being just what those animals would seek, and we know that they were plentiful enough about here when the Maoris inhabited the cave, because of the number of frag- ments of sea-lion fur found in the débris. At present the outer chamber promises most reward for digging and clearing away. The second chamber is less inviting to the explorer, but may prove more productive of bones and other relics than is now thought. Appended is a plan of the cave (PI. I.) and sketches (PI. II.) of the principal Maori implements and other articles therein found. DESCRIPTION OF PLATES I. AND II. PuatE I.—Monck’s CAVE NEAR SUMNER, GROUND PBAN. PuatEe II.—ARTICLES FOUND IN THE CAVE. Fig. 1. Wooden model of dog (?), 4. Fig. 2. Carved head of stick or paddle, 4. Fig. 3. Paddle or steer-oar, 7. Fig. 4. Comb, 4. Fig. 5. Bailer, 4. Fig. 6. Fish-hook, 4. Fig. 7. Fire-lighter, 4. Fig. 8. Hook (perhaps for suspending an ornament), +. Fig. 9. Fern-root pounder, 4. Fig. 10. Greenstone pendant, 4. Fig. 11. Needle (bone), 4. Fig. 12. Adzes, 3. Fig. 13. Fish-spears, !. Art. VI.—On the Disappearance of the Moe. By Major W. G. Mair. [Read befere the Auckland Institute, 11th November, 1889.| So much has been said and written about the question of whether the Maori people were familiar with the moa, or whether the great bird was practically extinct when the Maoris reached the shores of New Zealand from Hawaiki, about twenty generations ago, that it may be thought that there is nothing left unsaid about it; but I do not think that the matter has been set finally to rest, and perhaps it never will be. ‘Still, every possible scrap of information bearing upon such an interesting point should be placed upon record before the time comes when we cannot possibly collect anything more. For this reason I contribute what little information I — cm RN ree a ANOLE OC res SH MENEY YAN rent SS et eet * Sy ~ ? pete ea = 4 Pe We ST het ne | Stet 10 Serer Seb mae 2 fA ys att 2 = now i : Rehr Stn ee { a = Sab te natn ei RUB AI SEIB — Sift MOS MN ect CRT NS AMEE 2 a CHE LLL. 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Waals biked Wwe alee anaeed eight in geen, oth ; Pn? Kr etasareye ie $4 AVON, Shh e¢ ihe: au eds : nt anes Taye as ck “i aealgs- rikk mal hid soit vibsig 2 lo sr ah4 +a : ae uathati ists sevgGht bwianial sous © ly ey hr $4 tt i he Yoakenlicw: Seas Tal lia ond ap ewly tat ahi gogo oh asisiycuthu:, akyavlvoth ki a ist “aati sgast DNG vn : ae saath rt stalk ahha Hitu.—On Artesian Wells. 43¢ separate basins, there is no reason to suppose that the water- beds are absent in the one whilst being present in the other. Possibly the places hitherto selected for sinking were too near the hills. On the south side of Napier the rule holds good, for the water-bearing beds are lost as the hills are approached. For my part I should very much like to see another attempt inade to put down a well on the Western Spit by what is known as the ‘ shelling-out process.” A test-well at this place would settle once and for all whether artesian water is obtainable or not on the Port side of Napier, and such knowledge would go far towards encouraging the establishment of manufactures in close proximity to Napier and to the seaboard. It seems to me that public bodies like Borough Councils, Harbour Boards, and County Councils might expend a portion of their funds in less useful ways than testing for a good water-supply in places where the com- munity as a whole is likely to be benefited ; and I, for one, shall rejoice to see the day when public bodies like those named will recognize that the co-operative principle in providing for the common weal is not only the cheapest, but the one most likely to lead to the rapid development of production and of industries among communities. Third and Fourth Wells, Napier.—The twe wells to which reference will now be made are situated. in Munro Street, Napier, on what was until eight years ago a portion of dead water known as the “‘ Napier Swamp.” The first of these two wells is located some distance from the south-eastern boundary of Clive Square, and the second well is just 14 chains further away from the same boundary in a south-east direction. Clive Square is at the foot of the limestone hills forming the so-called Scinde Island, about midway between the north-east and south-west ends, so that the sinking of these two wells in a straight line from the hills is of value as showing the inclination of the water-bearing beds, whether towards the limestones or away from them. The value, how- ever, is much enhanced by the fact that 19 chains further away from the hills, along the same street, and exactly at the junction of Munro and Hastings Streets, another well was put down three years ago, so that in the same straight line extending from the foot of the Napier Hills in their central part there are three artesian wells, the exact depth of each being known, and the geological characters of the beds in the two wells under notice being also known for each foot and portion of a foot passed through during the process of sinking. These two wells were authorised to be put down by the Napier Borough authorities to provide for the growing re- quirements of the town, and they differ from any of the other wells in this district in their having a much larger tube-bore, 28 434 Transactions.—Geology. being 6in. in diameter, whilst the largest up to this time were wells of a 3in. bore; so that the sectional areas are as 36 to 9, or 4to1. The mode of putting down these wells was entirely different from that formerly adopted in this district. I have been particular to locate these wells, as they are of special importance, for they show in the clearest manner the troughing of the water-bearing beds in the direction indi- cated by me three years ago. The first well—that is, the one nearest the hills—was sunk to the depth of 156ft. before the water-bearing basin was reached. The beds passed through in this well were as follows: Shingle, 58Ht.; fine white lime- stone, 1ft.; pale-blue shingle, interbedded with 2ft. of hard brown clay, 18ft.; blue clay, with shells, 22ft.; fine blue sand, with thin clay-bands, 9ft.; blue clays, with sand-and-shell band, 6ft.; fine blue sand, with shells, 3ft.; rather coarse blue sands, in places full of shells, 30ft.; clay, with thin sand- bands containing bits of water-logged wood, 8ft.; shingle, the water-bearing bed. When water was struck the artesian well at the railway works, some distance away, diminished the height of its flow about 20ft.; but this was only tempo- rary, as the pressure again returned, and I understand that the flow at the railway well now shows no appreciable dimi- nution. The characters of the beds passed through were very similar, except that in the first well, after passing through 583{t. of shingle, lft. of fine white-limestone sand was met with. This was followed by 16ft. of blue shingle, about the middle of which was a hard pumiceous clay-band, nearly a foot in thickness. In the second well (see section, Plate XXXI., fig. 1) no limestone-sand band appeared, nor was there any pumiceous clay; but some of the pebbles brought up were of limestone similar to the Napier limestone. Below the shingle were alternate beds of blue clays and blue sands. When passing through the blue sands in each well fresh water appeared, and at times it rose in the pipe to within a few feet of the surface. Fresh water in these beds may be the result of percolation from the true water-bearing basin, as the beds run out towards the Scinde Island limestones. It has been explained that the first well put down in Munro Street was 156ft. in depth; the second well, which is 14 chains further from the hills, is just 40ft. deeper, or 196ft.; whilst the well at the junction of Munro and Hastings Streets, to which reference has already been made, is 230ft. in depth: so that the evidence is complete for the following statements :— 1. That the artesian beds die out towards the Napier hills just as they do towards the hills at the Greenmeadows. 2. That the beds dip apparently to the south-east at the rate of between 2ft. and 3ft. to the chain, which corresponds to a dip of little more than 2°. Hint.—On Artesian Wells. 435 The flow of water from each well is at the rate of 270 gallons a minute, or, say, 16,000 gallons an hour, or 384,000 gallons a day. ‘Thus, these two wells, representing the work of a forty-horse-power engine, supply more than three- quarters of a million gallons of water daily, of exceptional purity and suitability for domestic purposes. The cost of sinking the two wells, including £64 for boring-tools and £30 for bonuses, amounted to £534 16s. 7d., which at 7 per cent. interest represents an annual outlay of less than £38, and for which the town is suppled with more than 280 millions of gallons of water ready for use. The water as it rises to the surface exerts a pressure of about 13lb. to the square inch, corresponding to a rise, when allowance is made for friction, of about 30ft. above sea-level. The head- pressure exerted on the water at the bottom of the well, which is 196ft. in depth, in order to raise it 30ft. above sea-level, is equal to about seven atmospheres on each square inch. This will show how very necessary it is when sinking a well to insist upon pipes being used of the very best description, as in the case of the well just meutioned the pressure upon the lowest section of the pipes amounts to over 100lb. to each square inch. With such a pressure it is easy to understand why so many artesian wells begin to diminish their supply of water after the lapse of a few years, as they become choked by the rotting portions of the pipe towards the bottom of the well. But the sinking of the two wells in Munro Street has not merely given information as to the dip and general character of the beds overlying the true water-bearing bed: by the ‘«shelling-out process,” which was adopted in sinking, interest- ing information has been brought to light as to the age of the overlying beds. This has come about by the discovery in the blue-clay sands of a large number of very small shells in an excellent state of preservation. The common cockle-shell and a whelk had been the only shells noticed in previous sinkings, but it is now known that shells are common in most of the beds passed through during the process of sinking, except, perhaps, in the clay-sandy bed which immediately overlies the water-basin. In this bed much vegetable matter is met with, but no trace of shells as far as I have been able to discover, and I am inclined to the opinion that the clay- sandy bed which rests upon the water-bearing basin is of fresh-water origin, and, if not unconformable to the overlying beds, at least represents a change in the area of deposition to which reference will presently be made. The following is a list of the more important shells found in the beds during the process of sinking the wells. They were referred by me to Professor Hutton, of the Canterbury College, who kindly sent me the names of the different specimens received by him :— 436 Transactions.—Geoloqy. GastERopopA: Amphibola avellana, Chem.; Trophon am- biguus, Phil.; Trophon duodecimus, Gray; Trophon plebeius, Hutton; Cominella lucida, Phil.; Clathurella sinclairi, Smith; Turbonilla neozelanica, Hutton; Odostonia lactea, Angas: Potamopyrgus corolla, Gould; Pantipodus, Gray; Trochus tiaratus, Q. and G.; Cantharidus tenebrosus, Adams; Mono- donta ethiops, Acmea flammea, Q. and G.; Conus neozelanicus. LAMELLIBRANCHIATA: Tellina glabrella, Des.; T. subovata, Sowerby ; Venus stutchburyi, Gray ; V. mesodesma, Q. and G. ; Tapes intermedia, Q. and G.; Kellia citrina, Hutton; Nucula lacunosa, Hutton. I eliens that all these shells are to be found to- -day, if not in the immediate vicinity of Napier, certainly on some portion of the coast-line of New Zealand. They belong to animals which frequent tidal mud-flats like those of our inner harbour, or comparatively shallow waters in quiet bays and coves. The shells named above are found extending from a depth of 112ft. to 175ft. below the present sea-level, and there is every appearance of the animals which once occupied the shells having lived in the sands and sandy clays where the shells are now found. Similar deposits to those in which the shells were found are scattered over the whole of the district included within the artesian basin—varying in thickness, but, on the whole, maintaining their gener ‘al @havacterstics! T am in- formed by Mr. Hamilton, our secretary, that the animals which occupy shells of the kinds named do not now live at such great depths as those where the shells were found during the process of sinking; hence it must be inferred either that the animals have modified themselves to altered conditions since the beds overlying the artesian basin were deposited, or that these beds have been deposited on what was a subsiding area. Before deciding this question it will be necessary to see what information may be gathered from the rocks surrounding the Heretaunga Plain, which represents the area referred to. At one time, not so long ago considered as a geological period, the Kidnapper beds were united to the Redcliffe-Taradale beds. Between them that portion of the plain now intervenes which is the very centre of the artesian basin. The Kid- napper beds dip N.W., whilst the Redcliffe beds dip S.E., so that a syncline, extending for about ten miles, is formed between these two conglomerate and pumice series. The limestone range behind this series runs south-west, forming bold scarps behind Havelock, in the Tukituki Valley. The least observant must have noticed the peculiar slope of pie limestones as seen from Napier. These rocks dip N.W., a fairly high angle under the Heretaunga Plain, the wilt being as if “the rocks had suddenly snapped away from the Hitn.—On Artesian Wells. 437 limestones covering the hills farther to the south-east, and had fallen towards, and were about to slip underneath, the plain. At Napier the general dip of the limestones is N.W., just as at Havelock 1 whilst the limestones to the south-west of Redcliffe dip S.K. and form with the Havelock limestones. Here, then, on the north-west and south-east sides of the plain, are deposits of enormous water-carrying capacity passing under the plain, forming a longitudinal trough, open towards the ocean, and overlain by a series of beds that have been deposited on a subsiding area. That the Heretaunga Plain, the Kidnapper conglomerates, and the area around ‘Pakipaki have been disturbed by earth-movements, even within the memory of living evidence, is beyond question. In the great earthquake of 1853, which was felt over the larger portion of the colony, I am informed by our ex-president, the Rev. William Colenso, F.R.S., that the Ngaruroro River overflowed its banks at Waitangi, near Clive, and the ground showed a rift 10in. to 12in. wide, running north-west and south-east across the plain, thr ough which rift a lambent flame flickered for some time. A similar phenomenon was noticed by the Maoris who then dwelt on the west of the inner harbour, and so frightened were they at the unusual event that they quitted the locality. Disturbances were also noticed at Pakipaki, and the land in some places was raised several feet in height. It was during this earthquake that the Kidnapper conglomerates were riven and torn in many places. ‘These rifts may still be seen, and they can even be distinguished by an observer standing on the Napier hills by the circumstance of the conglomerates falling in sections towards the north-west, and by the greater slope of the north-west side of each rift than of the: south-east side. Here, then, the evidence seems clear that the Heretaunga Plain has been built up on an area of subsidence, and, such ‘being the case, it 1s easy to account for the appearance of shells--shallow-water shells—at com- paratively great depths, together with bits of wood, raupo, and even resin from the rimu-tree. The beds overlying the true water-bearing beds overlap limestones and conglomerates, and it is to this circumstance that the flowing wells are due, as the water in the underground basin is unable to find an outlet, except by percolation where the beds thin out under- neath the ocean. As to the age of the artesian and overlying beds, it will have been inferred that they follow in succession the upper shingle-deposits belonging to the Kidnapper beds. No single extinct shell has been found among those brought up with the sands from the wells, as enumerated above. Curiously, all the shells are represented in the rocks forming what is known as the Wanganui system, an upper division of the Pliocene formation, a list of fossils from which appears in 438 Transactions.—Geology. a paper by Professor Hutton, ‘Trans.,” vol. xviii., p. 336. That they are Post-tertiary I think there can be no doubt, the shingle-spit running from the Kidnappers to Tangoio forming the youngest deposit of the series in this district. The following section (Plate XXXI., fig. 1) represents well No. 2, Munro Street, Napier, as put down between the 10th May and the Ist August, 1888, at a cost of £281 9s. 11d. IV.—BOTANY. Arr. LII.—Descriptions of New Native Plants. By D. Perris, M.A., F.L:S. [Read before the Otago Institute, 11th June, 1889.] 1. Ranunculus areolatus, nov. sp. A small, slender, almost glabrous herb. Radical leaves on slender, glabrous, striate petioles that are lin.-2in. in length; blade tin. long, tin. broad, thin, cut to the middle into three oblong gently-rounded obtuse lobes (of which the two lateral ones are often cut by a shallow, wide incision), glabrous, or with a very few simple hairs on the margin and under-surface ; veins evident below, forming large oval areoles on the under-surface of each lobe. Scapes simple, slender, elongating considerably after flowering, with two semi-amplexicaul cauline leaves, the lower cut to the middle into three long linear lobes, the upper broad and entire, sparsely clothed with delicate silky hairs at and below the apex. Sepals not seen; petals five, oblong, with a narrow claw and three dark nerves, pubescent on the outer surface. Achenes forming a shortly-oblong head, very numerous, small, turgid, sub-stipitate, rounded at the back; beak short, slender, at right angles to the axis of the achene. Hab. Head of Lake Wakatipu. The species was collected by Mr. A. C, Purdie some years ago. 2. Lepidiwm kirkit, nov. sp: Avery small glabrous species, with entire linear leaves, and long prostrate branching stems. Rootstock as thick as a crow-quill, subdivided at the crown. Leaves rosulate, entire, narrow-linear, 4in. long or less, the basal part broad, membranous, and sheathing; cauline leaves minute, linear, tin. long. Stems several, slender, prostrate, flexuous, branched, sparingly leafy, 2in.—4in. in length. 440 Transactions.—Botany. Flowers perfect, minute, in lax elongating terminal racemes. Sepals small, rounded, green, with scarious edges ; petals narrow-linear-spathulate, as long as the sepals; sta- mens slender, twice the length of the sepals, or less. Pods on slender pedicels not exceeding their own length, sub-orbicular, but sensibly acute at the apex; apical notch narrow, filled up by the short style. Hab. Gimmerburn district, Maniototo Plain; 1,100ft. A most distinct plant. Its small size, prostrate habit, and short linear entire leaves mark it off from all the other native species. It is named in compliment to T. Kirk, Esq., F.L.S., who has published an important paper on the New Zealand species of the genus. 3. Aciphylla simplex, nov. sp. A branched, prostrate species, forming compact patches like A. dobsont, Hook. f. Stems slender, more or less branched, most densely clothed with simple closely-imbricating leaves. Leaves 1#in.-3in. long; the lower half expanded into a thin but stiff sheath $in. wide; the blade simple, linear-sub- ulate, jointed, semiterete, concave or channelled above, with an ill-defined midrib on the under-surface that frequently projects as a short, blunt, or pungent mucro. Flowering-stem as stout as the leaves, 14in.—3in. long, striate, bearing at its top two small leaves like the radical and four or five short densely-capitate umbels of flowers. Mature achenes not seen. Hab. Mount Pisa, Mount Cardrona, and Hector Mountains, 6,000ft., on broken rock. This species is very close to A. dobsom, Hook. f., from which, as well as from all its congeners, it is clearly distin- guished by its simple linear-subulate leaves. It flowers in February. 4. Helichrysum purdiei, nov. sp. A much-branched, prostrate, spreading species. Stems 14ft.—-2ft. long, rigid and woody below, the ultimate twigs wiry, very slender, and clothed with fine loose white tomentum. Leaves alternate, at intervals of tin.—din., uniform in texture and outline, membranous, tin.—sin. long, obovate- spathulate, bluntly rounded at the apex and abruptly apicu- late; upper surface reticulate and pubescent (in old leaves nearly glabrous) ; under-surface densely clothed with loosely- appressed greyish-white tomentum concealing the midrib and nerves; the margin recurved. Inflorescence corymbose, of 3 to 6 small heads, with Perrie.—On New Native Plants. 44] slender cottony pedicels and linear bracts (heads occasionally solitary or in pairs). Outer involucral scales half the length of the innermost, oblong, tomentose, pale yellowish-brown; the two or three inner series with white radiating tips, contracted into a narrow claw, and hardly longer than the florets. Hab, Dunedin, at Vauxhall and Black Jack’s Point. This plant has been repeatedly gathered by Mr. A. C. Purdie, in compliment to whom it is named. It seems to be confined to littoral sloping situations, and has been almost exterminated in its known habitats by the formation of roads and the spread of rank introduced grasses. The small heads and short radiat- ing involucral scales distinguish it from H. prostratwm (Hook. f.) and H. keriense (A. Cunn.). d. Gnaphalium paludosum, nov. sp. Leaves tin. long or less; the blade narrow - lanceolate, acute, gradually contracted below into a narrow petiole as long as the blade, one-nerved, glabrous and bright green above, below white with appressed tomentum except the green midrib, recurved. Stems scapiform, few, when flowering no longer than the leaves, but afterwards elongating to three to five times that length, very slender, white with loose tomentum ; bracts few, short, narrow-linear. Involucral scales in two series, the outer shorter, glabrous, narrow-linear, membranous, very pale green with darker patches at the tips. Pappus hairs coherent at the base, few, fine. Achene shortly oblong, pilose with very short stiff hairs. Receptacle deeply pitted. Hab. Rangipo Plain, North Island, 3,500ft. ; Ruahine Mountains, 4,000ft.; Dunstan Mountains (Otago), 3,500ft. ; Kyeburn Crossing (Maniototo Plain), 1,100ft.; Hector Moun- tains, 3,000ft. This has been hitherto reckoned a form of Gnaphalium traversit (Hook. f.). It differs from this in the very slender scape, the small head, the few involucral scales that are darker at the tips, and the glabrous green upper surface of the leaves. Its characters are very constant in all my speci- mens. ‘The plant is so small as to be easily overlooked. 6. Agrostis dyeri, nov. sp. . Culms tufted, erect, rigid, smooth, 6in.-10in. high, the uppermost sheath reaching to the base of the panicle. Leaves flat, in. broad or less, the cauline with large green striate sheaths; ligule broadly-oblong, lacerate, variable in length. 449 Transactions.—Botany. Panicle, brownish-green, 14in.—44in. long, contracted, ob- long in outline, composed of 5-7 clusters of branches springing alternately from opposite sides of the rachis, the branches similarly ee into a short series of branchlets. Spikelets ;%,in. or less. Empty glumes almost equal, acute, glabrous, green or ereen tinged with dark-brown, three-nerved, scabrid on the keel. Flowering glume incurved at the edges, broad, trun- cate, pale, with five distinct greenish nerves produced at the apex into short teeth or points. Palea none. Hab. Ruahine Mountains (west of Makaretu Bush), 5,000ft.; Tararua Mountains (Buchanan)!; Mount Arnould (Upper Hawea), 3,000ft.—4,000ft. The specimens from Mount Arnould are much smaller in all their parts except the spikelets than those from the mountains of the North Island, but they evidently belong to the same species. 7. Agrostis tenella, nov. sp. Culms not branched or tufted, capillary, wiry, erect, smooth, 7in.—14in. high. Leaves much shorter than the culms, involute, setaceous, the uppermost sheath not reaching to half the height of the culm ; ligule oblong, truncate, lacerate. Panicle 14in.—3in. long, spiciform, very slender, of few short me branches. Spikelets jin. in length. Empty glumes not spreading, very pale, shining, nearly equal, acute, glabrous, slightly scabrid at the keel. Flower- ing glume one-fifth shorter than the empty, hyaline, truncate, five- ‘nerved, the nerves delicate and produced to the apex, where they usually project as minute teeth. Palea, none in my specimens. Hab. Macrae’s, Waihemo County (Otago) ; 1,800ft. 8. Triodia australis, nov. sp. A short, densely-tufted grass, with procumbent or ascend- ing or erect culms. Culms leafy below, 24in.—6in. long, more or less branched at the base. Leaves involute, almost filiform, deeply striate, as long as the culms or shorter; sheaths broad and deeply grooved ; ligule represented by a band of fine hairs which form prominent tufts at the sides. Panicle small, contracted, of six or fewer short branches bearing 6-12 pale-green, two- or three-flowered spikelets, each about din. long ; pedicels finely pubescent, slender, not longer than the spikelets. Empty glumes slightly shorter than the spikelet, nearly Pretrizt.—On New Native Plants. 443 equal; the lower obtuse, ovate, coriaceous, 3—7-nerved (usu- ally 3-5-nerved), the nerves disappearing before reaching the transparent membranous margin; the upper similarly 3- nerved. Flowering glume as broad as long, erose at the truncate top, 9-nerved, the nerves not reaching as far as the scarious transparent edge; palea 2-nerved, nerves ciliate. Stamens 3, oblong, acute; styles 2, long, openly plumose. Hab. Mount Ida Ranges, 3,500ft.—4,500ft.; Hector Moun- tains, 4,500ft.; and Mount Cardrona, 5,000ft. This is not a very characteristic member of the genus Triodia, but it seems to have more characters in common with it than with any other genus of{grasses at present recognized. The flowering elumes are sometimes distinctly trifid. “Tts nearest native ally is 7’. exqua, Kirk. It is a nutritious grass, much relished by sheep and horses, and usually closely cropped. 9. Poa maniototo, nov. sp. Culms numerous, filiform, smooth, faintly grooved, 3in. high or less, leafy below, bluish-green when dry. Leaves very short; sheaths broad, white, membranous, broadly grooved; blade linear, sub-involute or almost terete, glabrous, not striate, with a single groove above, semi-pungent, 4in.—3in. long. Ligule rather long, usually divided into two acute projec- tions of the broad sheath. Panicle small, contracted, of 4-10 large shortly-pedicelled spikelets, each containing 4 or 5 flowers. Empty glumes unequal, acute, compressed, green with white edges, the upper 3-nerved, the lower 1-nerved, nerves rather faint. Flowering glumes silky all over, acute, 3-nerved, one nerve medial, two lateral, the latter much less distinct. Palea 2-nerved, bifid at the apex, the nerves slightly or strongly ciliate. Hab. Maniototo Plain, Upper Clutha basin, Mounts Pisa and Cardrona ; altitudinal range 1,000ft.—4,000ft. This grass is too small to be of economic value. Its nearest congener 1s Poa lindsayi, Hook. f., from which its larger spikelets and contracted panicles at once distinguish it. It seems to have been hitherto confounded with Poa exigua, Hook. f., a species with which it has but little affinity. 444 Transactions.—Botany. Arr. LIII.—Description of a New Species of Celmisia. By F. R. CHapman. [Read before the Otago Institute, 9th July, 1889.| Celmisia brownii. Plant 9in.-12in. high. Rootstock short. Leaves 9in. long, oblong, subacute. Greatest width 3hn., falling away, first rapidly, then gradually, towards the petiole. Petiolar part 14in.-2in. long, broadening to a_ sheath. Sheath membranous at edges, slightly purple near base on lower side. Petiole and sheath glabrous. Upper surface of leaf glabrous, with here and there a few scattered brown hairs on young leaves grown in winter. Lower side covered with close, short, French-grey tomentum, neither appressed nor woolly, but like velvet or peach-down, with the grain pointing towards the apex of the leaf. Midrib broad, shining, semi-transparent, pale-green, narrowing but still naked to the tip. The naked veins for the major part of their length like threads of light- green running through the tomentum. Viewed from above: Leaf longitudinally divided into about twelve corrugations, as in C. verbascifolia and some other species ; petiole, and the midrib for half its length, semi-trans- parent and pale-green, as from below. Leaf obscurely toothed or rough at edges, the roughness being commonly masked by tomentum. Colour of leaf from above, olive-green ; from below, between French-grey and green. Leaf not rigid, but rather kid-like to the touch. Scape, length same as that of leaves, or 2in.—3in. longer. Covered, like leaves, with hairy tomentum, through which it retains its pale-green colour. Very much flattened, and not rigid. Bracts few, and only near the head leafy, 2im.—4in. long, SEO: near sheathing-base, tomentose near tip. Head 2in. in diameter. ‘Involucral scales numerous, gla- brous towards the tip, linear-subulate. Inner scales slightly tomentose. Rays 100, in two series, 4in. long, j4in. wide. Achene pilose, covered with short bright hairs tin. long. Pappus longer. Corolla-tube pilose, or silky like achene. Locality. Mystery Pass, Disaster Burn, between Lake Manapouri and Smith Sound; altitude, 3,000ft.—3,500ft. A single specimen of this plant, one of the finest of the genus, was brought down by Mr. Malcolm Ross, who was a member of the second search-party which went oat in De- cember, 1888, to endeavour to ascertain the fate of my lamented friend Professor Mainwaring Brown, in whose memory I have named the species. Ihave succeeded in grow- T. Kirx.—On Mitrasacme montana. 445, ing the plant in a pot. Though in form this beautiful plant. bears a general likeness to C. verbascifolia, it differs strikingly in general appearance and in several important characters. As it is here described from a single specimen grown under difficulties, some points may not be found persistent, especially the general olive-green colour, which has modified under culti- vation. The height of the scape may differ from that of a naturally-grown specimen. Art. LIV.—On the Occurrence of a Variety of Mitrasacme montana, Hook. f., i New Zealand. By. A Kerns) WS. [Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 12th June, 1889.] Plate XXXII. THE herbaceous genus Iitrasacme comprises about thirty species, twenty-seven of which are found in Australia, two or three in tropical Asia, and a single endemic species dis- covered by Mr. J. Buchanan, F.L.S., on the mountains above Dusky Bay. The discovery of a strongly-marked variety of an Australian species in New Zealand is therefore of con- siderable interest. Some time back I received specimens from Mr. R. Helms, late of Greymouth, which at first sight bore a close resemblance to Mitrasacme montana, Hook. f., but pre- sented sufficient points of difference to render them worthy of varietal rank. JI propose to distinguish this form as var- helmstui. The stems are more imbricating, matted, and more depressed than in the type. It may be characterized under :— Mitrasacme montana, Hook. f., var. helmszit. A small herbaceous perennial, forming depressed matted patches. Stems slender, 1$in.2in. high; leaves opposite, obovate, glabrous, narrow ‘ed into very short flattened petioles, or sessile. Flowers invariably terminal, nearly sessile ; calyx 4-partite, segments linear, shorter than the corolla, acute or obtuse, persistent in fruit ; corolla tubular, slightly contracted at the mouth, lobes short, acute; ovary rounded, styles erect, connivent, slender. Capsule small, nearly or quite sessile, mouth compressed, the outer angles produced into lateral curved filiform processes. Hab. South Island—Paparoa Ranges, Westland ; 3,000ft. ht. Helms. 446 Transactions.—Botany. This differs from the typical form in the more densely matted habit, the longer calyx, in the peduncles being absent, or never elongated even in fruit, and in having the compressed fruits produced into curved lateral filiform processes. The flowers are of a delicate fawn colour. The typical form occurs in Tasmania and Victoria. EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXXII. Mitrasacme montana, Hook. f., var. helmsit. Fig. 1. Flowering specimen, natural size. Fig. 2. Leaves, enlarged. Fig. 3. Flower, enlarged. Fig. 4. Calyx, enlarged. Fig. 5. Corolla, enlarged. Fig. 6. Corolla laid open to show the stamens, enlarged. Fig. 7. Pistil, enlarged. Fig. 8. Fruit, natural size. Fig.9. , enlarged. Art. LV.—Description of a New Species of Chenopodium— C. buchanani. By it) Kren, J o.S: [Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 12th Junz, 1889.] Plate XXXII. THis remarkable plant was discovered so far back as 1868 by Mr. J. Buchanan in Port Nicholson, where it is restricted to a single habitat. In the absence of female flowers it was doubtfully referred to C. triandrum, Forster, and subsequently to C. pusillum, Hook. f. About eight or nine years ago I re- ceived specimens of the same plant from Mr. D. Petrie, who collected them on the Maniototo Plains; subsequently I had the good fortune to discover the plant in two other localities : but until recently the female flowers remained undetected. It is usually restricted to a very limited area in each locality, and occurs in situations where it is exposed to the influence of the sea-spray; but to both these peculiarities there is a notable exception, which requires special mention. On the Maniototo Plains I found it growing at a distance of eighty miles from the sea and an elevation of 1,800ft., extending in vast profusion for many miles, although with occasional breaks, its habitat being a whitish clay strongly impregnated with saline matter. Wherever this bedis exposed the Chenopodium is’abundant, associated with other plants usually restricted to littoral situations. Gransegtions Yew Aexlnyh Awstitute, vol. XXII. P1XXXIT MITRASACME MONTANA. Hook.f. LIME del. var HELMS. CHP. Lith. heaila doudslow: ier ee yey es a best tt hye pron ass Hot a uy ities 10 it eniesale foe Like iho Re nl eriayr attr aq texenate eid ib Bie 5 ee 8 hans my “sunk AY nin SUTIN Hf Asis Bs ays tivedes dea sen ao ght Bye} va Jae. Peo: Plat i Sar q RTOS g epi di Cee se tate Bein): Ad} os we th ‘Aline Sans Teh ere ty aawolk oydipitves ds 3 : ue arent Har ReG:,: santos off ine payed ale ae ami “Jia Sey SPAM aay lostmine ase ee oa Ba i ‘sie nid’ tote #8. Saeosts } aaos rit aiesbeg? alte HIND nfm “bis Sub sess0yt. hase j 5 . aa i 7? Bhabdin otssor dott Pt ire lor! Ae Gi “pirate now haathaN, we Mr pk ee i outtake a Hispiatla Ps ction MA AP: sre ie newer Cbs Meg ware ; aah WLIO Oe. 4 toadhabt ten 2bOr is ante aan aim SoU ae jae as Rie seroma yr if FEM ‘i Rabati sq) thse SN bd BP Yoke" frig TLL PETS. AO V0 ri rato We BE Wit z ? ‘Sibert ik, incre! iH: vy Fa ' Rye oar dedi thitvetain wait. puesih: a9 wale th th a wig ali ost Deeks dain “gaxe napa tpl od Ree 2a o nas onreibrr das, » A bi Cee Fe ret 2 ha rY jean & an apt roe Ure ar y ot a b* Shes “ls benalice: bite basta germduler fade ae ae se" ' owe “howsab 0 gyre? oS a ane ee el Ba = 7 T. Krrx.—On a New Species of Chenopodium. 447 This species forms depressed white or greyish patches, which are easily recognized at a considerable distance owing to the mealy tomentum with which the plant is covered. The stems are excessively branched, the branches being stiff and wiry, especially when dry. The flowers are extremely minute: the female, being much smaller than the male, are necessarily inconspicuous ; but this is not the only cause of their having escaped notice so long: the female perianth is developed on the lower parts of the branches ; it is of the same consistence as the farinose leaves, and so closely resembles the tip of an impoverished branchlet springing from the axil of a leaf that its true nature is only shown by the extremely minute stigmas, which, being extremely delicate and fragile, are easily over- looked, even by a good observer. All traces of the stigma disappear in badly-dried specimens, and it is not an easy matter to detect the female flowers on good specimens, even when they are freely developed. The yellow anthers of the male flowers, which are produced near the tips of the branches, attract attention even on a cursory examination. It affords me great pleasure to connect the name of its original discover, Mr. J. Buchanan, F.L.8., with this interest- ing species. Chenopodium buchanant. An annual moncecious herb clothed with farinose tomentum. Stems prostrate or sub-erect, lin.—3in. high, excessively branched, branches wiry. Leaves opposite or alternate, sessile or sub-sessile, $in.—tin. long, entire, ovate, or ovate-oblong, or nearly orbicular. Flowers axillary, solitary—male, near the tips of the branches, perianth membranous, shortly peduncled, minutely papillose, 5-cleft, tips of segments incurved, stamens 5, exserted; female, on the lower parts of the branches, goin. long, sessile, perianth urceolate, farimose, 2-lipped, stigmas 2. Seed rounded, much compressed, puncticulate, adhering to the utricle. Hab. New Zealand. North Island: Port Nicholson; J. Buchanan, T. Kirk. South Island: The Brothers Rocks, Nelson; C. Robson! Maniototo Plains (1,800ft.) ; D. Petrie, T. Kirk. Centre Island, Foveaux Strait; T. Kirk. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXII. Chenopodium buchanani. Fig. 1. Young plant, natural size. Fig. 2. Staminate flower, natural size and enlarged. Fig. 3. Pistillate flower, natural size and enlarged. Fig. 4. Pistil, slightly enlarged. Fig. 5. Seed, natural size and enlarged. Fig.6. , side view, enlarged. 448 Transactions.—Botany. Art. LVI.—Notice of the Discovery of Asplenium japoni- cum, a Fern new to the New Zealand Flora. By T. F. CHrssreman, F.L.5., Curator of the Auckland Museum. [Read before the Auckland Institute, 19th August, 1889.) So many people take an interest in the ferns of New Zea- land, either as collectors or cultivators, that no apology is needed for bringing the discovery of an additional species under the notice of the Institute. Rather more than a year ago Miss Clarke, of Waimate, Bay of Islands, sent for my examination a parcel of specimens of a fern new to her, and which she believed to be new to New Zealand. In this she was perfectly correct, the fern proving to be Aspleniwm japont- cum, @ species common enough in many tropical and subtropi- cal countries, but not previously known from New Zealand proper, although in August, 1889, I gathered specimens in a locality as near to us as the Kermadec Islands. Through the kindness of the Rev. Philip Walsh, of Wai- mate, Bay of Islands, I have obtained some information respecting the locality in which the fern was found. It formed a patch about 40ft. square in some damp and stony ground on the banks of the Okura River, a branch of the Kerikeri River. The vegetation in the immediate vicinity was chiefly composed of tall tea-tree (Leptospermum), and no plants of any special interest besides the Aspleniwm were noticed. The neighbourhood was searched for some distance, but no addi- tional specimens were observed. Asplenium japonicum belongs to the sub-genus Diplazium, hitherto believed to have no representatives in New Zealand. None of the specimens sent to me by Miss Clarke exceeds 18in. in height, and most of them are much smaller. In colour and texture there is some resemblance to Aspleniwm wmbrosum, but that is a much larger fern, with a differently-divided frond. It is quite unhke all the other New Zealand species, and will be recognized with ease should it be found in other localities in the north of the colony, as is not improbable. The follow- ing description is drawn up from Miss Clarke’s specimens :— Rhizome slender, apparently long and creeping. Stipes slender, pale, with a few chaffy scales at its base, 4in.—8in. long. Frond 6in.—9in. long, 3in.—din. broad, ovate-lanceolate, pinnate at the base, pinnatifid towards the top; pinne jin. broad, cut down nearly to the rachis in the lower part ; lobes oblong, rounded, toothed; texture herbaceous. Veins 3-6 to a lobe on each side, usually all soriferous. Sori occasionally diplazoid. Cotenso.—Oz Two New Cryptogamic Plants. 449 Originally discovered in Japan, hence its name of japoni- cum. It has since been found to be widely spread through Hastern Asia, ranging from Japan and China to India and Malacca. It also occurs in several of the islands of the Malay Archipelago, in New Guinea, and has been recorded from Fiji and Samoa and others of the Polynesian islands. Arr. LY ly-discovered Indt- genous Cryptogamic Plants. By W. Couenso, F.R.S., F.L.S., &e. {Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 8th July, 1889.) Isoetes, Linn. 1. 1. multangularis, sp. nov. Root a tuber as big as a sinall marble, orbicular in outline, sub-conical, 8-9 lines long, 6-7 lines diameter, multangular, deeply furrowed, covered with a dense coating of fine dark- brown hairs; a cross-section shows 5-6 broadly-obovate and eae regular pure-white knobs (or lobes), their sinuses each 2-3 lines deep, with a minute anil pith-like ring (prima facie reminding of a small primrose corolla). Rootlets many, very long—8in.—5in., filiform, mostly simple, brown. Leaves numerous, 15-20 and upwards, 6in.—7in. long, erect, linear, very acuminate, sub-rigid, brittle, glabrous, glossy, minutely and clearly marked in quadrilateral divisions, the upper por- tion light-green, the lower white, semi-terete on the under and slightly flattened on the upper surface, regularly septate in 4 alternate longitudinal divisions as if composed of 4 rows, tips terete filiform, apex obtuse, breadth at middle ;4in., the lower portion for lin.-l4din. canaliculate with the margins membranous and gradually conniving, decreasing upwards, the basal portion for about Lin. dilated to nearly 5 lines in breadth. Below the leaves on the outside are broadly elliptic light-brown transparent scales with a thickened dark centre and very finely reticulated, their margins irregularly lacerate and tip apiculate. Sporangium ovoid, sides straight, sub 2 lines long and 1 line wide. Macrospores of various shapes, some hemispherical, others globoso-tetrahedric like segments of spheres, usually smooth, a few eaty having 2 or 3 minute points; and also varying in size from 51, in. to