New Zealand Institute.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 16, 1883, Unnumbered Page

New Zealand Institute.

Collections. During the intervals of field work Mr. Cox has been engaged on an examination of the New Zealand minerals, and has embodied the results of

his work in two papers, read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, in which he has scheduled all the minerals which are yet known in New Zealand. The total number of varieties mentioned is 74 metallic and 134 non-metallic minerals, making 208 in all. He has since been engaged on an examination of the rocks, and is grouping and classifying them prior to description. He has also completed the classification of a fine collection of foreign minerals, including a valuable series presented some years ago by the Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, which has hitherto been inaccessible for reference. The examination of very large collections of New Zealand rocks has also been commenced, about fifty selected specimens of volcanic rocks having been sliced and prepared for microscopic analysis, and about a thousand specimens critically examined. During the past year collections of fossils have been made at twenty different localities, chiefly from Tertiary and Cretaceo-tertiary strata. The collections are not yet fully worked out, but the number of specimens added to the Geological Survey collections in the Mnseum cannot be short of 10,000 fossils. Nearly 9,000 of these came from a single locality. The remaining collections, not numbering more than 1,300 specimens, are, though small, very valuable additions to our knowledge of the fauna of the beds from whence they came.