Page image

H—22

it will satisfactorily supplement the portrait index and the photographic collection. Already it has been of service to readers. Among the subjects covered by students are the following: — Trade between New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Timber-milling in Canterbury. History of Cheviot district. Thomas Eysshe Palmer. John Ballance. Sir Robert Stout. Rev. James Buller. Flags of the Pacific. Labour traffic in the Pacific. New Zealand's part in antarctic exploration. The sub-antarctic islands of New Zealand. New Zealand fiction. History of Belfast. History of Coromandel. Dumont D'Urville. Wakefield family. Katherine Mansfield. History of education in Otago. Land confiscation in Taranaki. Photograph Section The number of photographs in the collection now approaches 120,000, of which approximately one-third is either completely or partially catalogued. Acquisitions through the year have been many, valuable, and various, and include several thousand negatives of the work of a Nelson photographer, Tyree. These pictures, mostly made in the 1890's, though largely of Nelson and Marlborough Provinces, include modes of transport and dress and are of national importance. When catalogued they will be a most valuable acquisition. Progress has been made in the cataloguing of other important collections—namely, those of F. N. Jones of Nelson, J. H. Kinnear of Auckland, and A. P. Godber of Silverstream, Wellington. This last-named photographer, whose work was largely concerned with Maori and railway subjects, has provided the Library with a splendid pictorial record of the first twenty-five years of the present century. Considerable progress has been made in the classifying and indexing of the shipping section, and an effort to bring it up to date to include photographs of present-day shipping has resulted in over one hundred vessels being added. These photographs representing the usual traders to New Zealand are the work of the photograph librarian. Donations The volume of worth-while material presented has shown no diminution this year. The most notable is probably the bequest of the late Percy Godber's collection of New Zealand photographs, railways history, and Maori material. Several letters and a poem by Katherine Mansfield, and a hitherto unrecorded piece of sheet music by her, were striking additions to our records of this writer. Mr. James Andrew of Ika, Wairarapa, was instrumental in our receiving the original brand-book of the early Wairarapa sheepruns. Mrs. G. Mintoft and Mr. Roland Hipkins presented early water-colours by Brees, the originals of the engravings in his highly valued " Pictorial Illustrations," 1847. Miss Cox of Gisborne presented in memory of her father several volumes of seventeenth and

43