OTAGO INSTITUTE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 784, 19 November 1873, Page 2 (Supplement)

OTAGO INSTITUTE.

The ordinary meeting of this body was held in the University Building on the 11th. Mr J. f l . Thomson occupied the chair, and the attendance was small. Mr Justice Chapman was unanimously elected a Governor of the New Zealand Institute ; and for nomination as an honorary member of that Institute, there were proposed—Mr Herbert Spencer, Sir Charles Lyell, and Professor Tjndall. There was a tie between the two last mentioned ; and the Chairman gave his casting vote in favor of the eminent geologist. Mr A. H. Ross read a pai>er "On the observed irregularities in the action of the compass in iron steam vessels." He said the great proportion of the casualties that had occuned on the coast of this Colony might be attributed to compass errors, and if so, were preventive. On two voyages of coastal steamers during the present year he had made observations, and on one vessel the two compasses never agreed, the differences varying with every change in the direction of the ship's head. The least difference was about 12 deg., or a little over a point when the direction steered was W.N.W.; the greatest difference, 27 deg., or 2A points on a W.N.W. course. In another steamer, on the southward voyage, the difference between the two compasses varied from 5i to 7 points, the vessel then being on an even keel. Deviations of the compasses could be accurately corrected by the following mechanical methods By a magnet placed in an athwart ship direction, for correcting the deviation when the ship's head is N. or S.; by a magnot in the head and stern direction, when the ship's head is E. or \V.; and by a mass of unmagnetised iron—a small box of chain is best —at the same level of the compass, iu either the athwart ship or head and stern line, according to circumstances (usually in the former), when the ship's head is N.E., S.E., S.W., or N.W. The distance of the magnets and unmagnetised iron from the compass to b e iu each case determined by trial. This readjustment could always be done in harbor, and probably also at sea, in a very short time. He believed that the variation of the compasses so adjusted on board I steamers between New Zealand and Melbourne would be almost, if not altogether, imperceptible. Capt. Hlitton read a list of the insects received as having come to New Zealand before the year 1870. According to it the number of species was as followsColeoptera, 265; Hymenoptera, 23; Lepidoptera, about 250; Diptera, 98; Neuroptera, 42 ; Orthoptera, 30 ; Heteroptera, 22; Homoptera, 22; total, about 750. The species were so numerous that no person would undertake the task of naming them all. The beetles alone, for example, were more numerous than the plants of New Zealand. The General Government should be urged to place a sum on the Estimates—L3oo would be i enough —to pay some one to collect into one volume, ana translate from the various languages in which they were published, the descriptions already pointed out, which numbered about a thousand.