OTAGO INSTITUTE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 785, 26 November 1873, Page 1 (Supplement)

OTAGO INSTITUTE.

The ordinary meeting of this body tm held in the University Building on the 11th. Mr J. C. Thomson occupied the chair, and the attendance was HinalL 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 Profeator 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. Koss read a paper "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 preventable. 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 2i points on a W.Of.W. coarse. In another steamer, on the soutAward voyage, the difference between the two apmpasses varied from 54 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 magnet in the head and stern direction, when the ship's head is E. or W.; and by amass of unmagnetised iron -a small box of chain h best —at the same level of the compass, in 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 be in 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 steamers between New Zealand and Melbourne would be almost, if not altogether, imperceptible. Capt HCTTON 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 follows:—Coleoptera, 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 aIL 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 enough—to pav some one to collect into one volume, and translate from the various languages in which they were published, the descriptions already pointed out, which numbered about a thousand.