PETROLOGICAL RESEARCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23599, 8 September 1938, Page 3

PETROLOGICAL RESEARCH

DR C. L. HUTTON’S APPOINTMENT NEW BRANCH OF OFFICIAL STUDY A new branch of State scientific research will be established next week when Dr C. L. Hutton assumes in Wellington the newly created post of petrologist to the Geological Survey. Dr Hutton is at _ present visiting Dunedin, having just returned from two years’ research in mineralogy at Cambridge University under Dr C. E. Tilley. He will leave for Wellington on Monday. Dr Hutton is a distinguished graduate of the Otago School of Mines and spent four years in research work at the University ot Otago prior to going to Cambridge. Speaking to a Daily Times reporter yesterday, he said the post was an entirely new one for New Zealand. The Geological Survey had done a lot of work in the sphere of mineralogy, but the mapping and investigation of the large areas of rock in the Dominion had in the past been almost neglected. What had been achieved in this connection had been carried out by the universities. The work, Dr Hutton said, was academic and scientific rather than economic, but it was interesting and important inasmuch as there were enormous areas in New Zealand that were still untouched. During his research at Cambridge he had been dealing with a lot of rock from West Otago around Lake Wakatipu, and it had been found that these samples included many interesting and, in some cases, extremely rare minerals These minerals were not of any great economic value, but the work had a connection with economic research because it was possible that investigations might disclose minerals of economic value, even though one would not set out with that idea in view. Dr Hutton said he had brought back with him some collections of rock secured in Northern France and also on the polar peninsula in Russia which he hoped would form the nucleus of a petrological museum. There had never been such an institution in New Zealand, but it was considered that it was time a move was made in this direction.