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amalgamated copper plates and blanket-strakes, berdan basin, cyanide apparatus capable of treating up to a ton in weight of material and a small roasting furnace—still Mr. Gordon wished a small rock breaker to be added to the battery, and requested some further information regarding the proposed position of the battery. This was supplied without delay, and now, quite recently, Mr. Gordon, in a letter to Mr. Allen, made the further request for a plan and cross-section of the part of the building proposed for the plant, together with accurate levels of the ground between the Leith Street, where a rock embankment offers a fine foundation and good height for the battery with easy access from the street—a position which we were originally very anxious to choose, but found that the cost of preparing the ground and of the necessary housing-in of the battery would bring the total cost of the plant considerably above the stipulated limit of £300. Mr. A. Begg, our lecturer in surveying, having kindly promised to furnish the required plans and levels at once, we may now hope to receive soon authority from the Mining Department to commence preparations and order the plant, so as to have it in working order in the early part of next year. In conclusion, I have to mention that Mr. J. R. Don, the lecturer in geology, has rendered an important service to the class in petrography by having the machine for grinding thin rock sections provided with apparatus permitting the slicing of rock specimens with the use of emery, the grinding down of the thin slices produced being far more expeditious and in other respects more satisfactory than the method before available of knocking off chips from the specimens and rendering these thin enough by grinding. I have, &c, Geoege H. P. Uleich, The Chancellor, University of Otago. Director, School of Mines.

C.—Repoet of the Cubatoe op the Museum. Sib,— During the year considerable progress has been made with the cataloguing of the Museum. With the assistance of Mr. G. H. Barber, the card-catalogue of the vertibrates —both general and New Zealand collections—is now nearly complete. In the early part of the year a good deal of time was devoted to the mounting and cataloguing of the collections made in the islands visited by the " Hinemoa," in February, 1895, when His Excellency, Lord Glasgow, was good enough to include Professor Parker among his party, and to allow the Taxidermist, Mr. Jennings, to accompany the expedition. A large collection of zoological and ethnological specimens has been received from Miss S. D. Shand, of the Chatham Islands, and Mr. R. Henry, Curator of Resolution Island, has forwarded some interesting examples of the fauna of the West Coast Sounds. Towards the end of the year the collections of New Zealand zoology were enriched by the purchase of a full-sized sunfish (Orthagoriscua mold) which has since been successfully mounted. The general zoological collections have been increased by a large number of interesting specimens, some presented by the Australian Museum, others collected by the Curator during a visit to Sydney, and by a fine series of deep-sea minerals from the Indian Ocean, received in exchange from the authorities of the Indian Museum, Calcutta. A beginning has been made in the rearrangement of the general collection of shells in accordance with a more modern classification. By concentrating these specimens into a smaller number of cases, it is intended to make room for a typical collection of fossils, arranged stratigraphically. To the educational portions of the collections have been added very fine disarticulated skeletons of the Perlon Shark (Hexanchus) and the New Zealand Skate, both prepared by the process of impregnation with glycerine jelly. In each case the names of the principal parts of the skeletons are indicated by means of labels. It is hoped that these specimens will be followed by others, illustrating the higher vertibrate groups. I have, &c, T. Jefpeey Pabkeb, The Chancellor, Univerity of Otago. Curator.

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