Page:Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute - Volume 1 (2nd ed.).djvu/478

444 "At about a quarter after seven o'clock, on the evening of the 5th of August, and while at work in the bush, observed a light very much brighter than the moon, which had just risen and was only two days past the full, shining brightly in a clear sky. The light appeared to be a large round ball of fire, about the size of the moon, travelling from an easterly direction towards the west. The ball of fire burst, and a portion of it apparently struck the ground at about 50 to 100 yards from my house at Karori. The meteor produced a very strange feeling upon me, but which I cannot describe.

"There was a rumbling noise at the time of the descent of the meteor."

The Chairman, Mr. Braithwaite, and Mr. Steward, remarked that they had also seen the meteor referred to.

Dr. Hector hoped that such unusual phenomena would be closely observed in future. In Europe, the whole of the circumstances would be recorded with the greatest accuracy, and he suggested that all who had made observations should reduce them to writing, and send them to the Secretary.

2. "On the Orthography of the Maori Language," by J. C. Crawford, F.G.S.

It was a subject of congratulation to the inhabitants of New Zealand, that in the reduction of the Maori tongue to a written language, a system of orthography has been adopted similar to that of the languages of Southern Europe, inasmuch as the letters are pronounced as they are spelt.

The Maori tongue has been thereby relieved from the grotesque aspect which many aboriginal and Eastern languages have assumed, under the attempt to reduce them to intelligible sounds, by the use of the undefined and variable English alphabet. It would not be out of place to offer a few remarks on the peculiarity of the English orthography, of the application of the same system to the pronunciation of the classical languages, and of the effects thereby produced on the inhabitants of the British Isles, and of other countries, with whom they have become associated.

The great peculiarity of the English tongue, as distinguished from the languages of the European continent, is the number of medial sounds which it contains.

These sounds are represented by the usual Eoman alphabet, each vowel having, in consequence, to do duty for a great variety of sounds, which makes it so difficult for the foreigner, accustomed to well-defined sounds in his own language, to acquire the correct pronunciation of the English tongue.

From this cause, the defect of what may be called vowel-deafness has