THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 1481

Despatches from the Secretary of State.

Colonial Secretary's Office,
Wellington, 29th October, 1878.

THE following despatches, with enclosures, from
the Colonies, are published for general information.
G. S. WHITMORE.

[CIRCULAR.]
Downing Street, 24th August, 1878.

SIR,—I have the honor to transmit to you, for pub-
lication in the colony under your Government, the
enclosed notice respecting a prize of £100 for an
essay on hydrophobia, its nature, prevention, and
treatment, offered by Mr. V. F. Benett Stanford,
M.P., and to be awarded by the Royal College of
Physicians, London.

I have, &c.,
M. E. HICKS BEACH.

The Officer Administering
the Government of New Zealand.

Prize of One Hundred Pounds for an Essay on
Hydrophobia: its Nature, Prevention, and Treat-
ment. Offered by V. F. Benett Stanford, Esq.,
M.P., to be awarded by the Royal College of
Physicians of London.

Conditions under which the above prize is to be
competed for:—

1. The essay must be in English, or accompanied
   by an English translation.

2. The essay must be delivered to the College on
   or before 1st January, 1880.

3. Each essay to be accompanied by a sealed
   envelope, containing the name and address of the
   author, and bearing a motto on the outside. The
   same motto to be inscribed on the essay.

4. The essay may be the joint production of two or
   more authors.

5. The essay, if not published by the author within
   a year, to become the property of the College.

6. The prize not to be awarded unless an essay of
   sufficient merit be presented.

The questions which are thought by the College
specially to require investigation are—

a. The origin and history of outbreaks of rabies,
particularly in the United Kingdom and its depen-
dencies.

b. The best mode of prevention of rabies.

c. The characteristics of rabies during life, and the
anatomical and chemical changes which are associated
with the disease in its successive stages, particularly
in its commencement.

d. The origin of hydrophobia in man.

e. The chemical and anatomical morbid changes
observed in the subjects of the disease, with special
reference to those having their seat in the organs of
the nervous system, and in the salivary glands.

f. The symptoms of the disease, particularly of its
early stage, as illustrated in well-observed cases.

g. The diagnosis of the disease in doubtful cases,
from conditions more or less resembling it.

h. The alleged prolonged latency of the malady.

i. The efficacy of the various remedies and modes
of preventing the disease which have been proposed,
and what plan of treatment, whether prophylactic or
curative, it would be most desirable to recommend
for future trial.

[CIRCULAR.]
Downing Street, 19th August, 1878.

SIR,—I have the honor to transmit to you, for your
information, the accompanying copies of a letter which
has been received from Sir J. Hooker, respecting the

"Flora Australiensis," a work specially devoted to
the botany of Australia, the completion of which is
now announced; and of my reply to that letter.

I have, &c.,
M. E. HICKS BEACH.

The Officer Administering
the Government of New Zealand.

Sir J. D. Hooker to Colonial Office.

Royal Gardens, Kew, 24th July, 1878.

SIR,—It is with peculiar pleasure that I call your
attention to the publication, during the present year,
of the seventh and concluding volume of the "Flora
Australiensis."

I believe that this work occupies a unique place in
botanical literature. I am not aware of any other
which, treating of the vegetation of so large a portion
of the earth's surface, has been so successfully brought
to a conclusion.

For the last sixteen years it has engaged the un-
remitting attention of its author, George Bentham,
Esq., F.R.S., late President of the Linnæan Society
of London, who has carried on the studies necessary
for its elaboration in the library and herbarium of the
Royal Gardens, so largely enriched by his own muni-
ficent gifts.

The utility of the work, in describing in a uniform
manner and in easily intelligible language the plants
of a country so rich in vegetable products, cannot be
over-estimated; and it is a matter of daily experience
that without such a work these plants could not be
accurately discriminated, and could not therefore be
turned to useful account with any certainty.

In a scientific point of view the "Flora Austra-
liensis" is of inestimable value. It records the
nature of the great bulk of the flora, with all the
knowledge and skill of one of the greatest living
systematists, and this while the natural conditions
of the country can still be easily distinguished from
the inevitable changes which must follow agricultural
occupation and the operations of a wide-spread com-
merce.

The accumulation in London, and principally at
Kew, of the important botanical collections made by
successive travellers and explorers, from the date of
Captain Cook's voyage to the present day, have made
the preparation of the "Flora Australiensis," in this
country, a matter of necessity. The labours of these
men are bound up with the history of the Australian
Colonies, and the mere barren enumeration of Aus-
tralian plants, apart from the names of their first
discoverers, would be an ungrateful obliteration of
much that Australians will always hold in respect.

Nor must it be forgotten that many species obtained
through the industry of these early collectors have
never been gathered since.

To no one was the force of these facts more apparent
than to Baron von Mueller, the distinguished Go-
vernment Botanist of Victoria. Not merely did he
therefore waive his own, in many respects pre-eminent,
claims to the authorship of the "Flora Australiensis,"
but, with singular generosity, he transmitted to this
country his immense Australian herbarium, the
examination of which was indispensable to the proper
elaboration of the work. He, furthermore, allowed
duplicate specimens to be taken from his collections
for preservation at Kew as the authentic types upon
which the descriptions published in the "Flora" had
been based.

I trust that the completion of this the most im-
portant of the series of colonial floras, projected by
my late father, will be recognized as evidence of the
value of Baron von Mueller's services, and of the
botanical establishments of Melbourne and Kew, in