The geology of New Zealand in explanation of the geographical and topographical atlas of New Zealand : also, lectures by Dr F. Hochstetter delivered in New Zealand

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I. OBSERVATIONS UPON THE CHARTOGRAPHY OF NEW ZEALAND.

BY DR. A. PETERMANN.

The History and Progress of the Geographical Knowledge and Chartography of New Zealand may be classified into four periods:-- 1642, The discovery by Tasman. 1769, The investigation and survey by Cook. 1848, Survey by the English Admiralty. 1859, Commencement of the surveys in the interior by F. von Hochstetter and Julius Haast.

The Dutch navigator, Abel Jansen Tasman, discovered New Zealand on the 13th December, 1642, observing from the westward the clouded summits of the Southern Alps. He sailed along the coast passing Cook's Straits and the Northern Island up to the Three Kings. Although he saw the greater part of the West Coast of New Zealand, the result of his observations was very incomplete and erroneous, which is proved by the fact that he considered New Zealand as a part of the Terra Australis Incognita which, according to his supposition, stretched to the far east, and was connected with the South Cape of America.

The knowledge of New Zealand made no advance for nearly a century, until the time when Cook anchored at Tauranga, Poverty Bay, on the East Coast, on the 8th of October, 1769; and it was on this his first visit and his second and third (1773-74, 1779), that he investigated New Zealand, sailed round it, and finished a survey of its entire coast. New Zealand was visited nearly at the same time as two French navigators, viz.: - in December, 1769, by Captain Surville, and in the year 1772 by the unfortunate Captain Marion, who B

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4 THE CHARTOGRAPHY OF NEW ZEALAND.

was killed and eaten by the natives at the Bay of Islands. Neither of the expeditions added anything of importance to Cook's observations or to the knowledge of the country.

Through Cook's glorious discoveries the attention of Europe was drawn in a very marked manner to New Zealand. Whalers visited its harbours, and occasional adventurers began to settle; but the early period of the European colonization was attended only with crime and disgrace. A new and better era began with the year 1814, when Samuel Marsden founded the first Christian mission ; from that time the intercourse between the Europeans and Aboriginals was better regulated. An attempt at colonization was made in the year 1825, but it was not until 1840 that New Zealand became an English Colony.

Since the time of Cook, in the year 1769, and still more, since that of Marsden, in 1814, down to the Admiralty surveys in 1848, the literature bearing upon New Zealand is comprised in a great number of very valuable publications, official reports, works of travels, books, pamphlets of various kinds, charts and maps. Thompson* counts not less than two hundred and fortyfive. Amongst the maps of the period are Cook's surveys, the detail charts of separate bays and harbours, by English and French naval officers - reckoning from North to South: Port Monganui, by A. H. Halloran, 1845; Bay of Islands, by M. Duperrey, 1824; Tutukaka Harbour, and Nongodo River, by N. C. Phillips, 1837; Mahurangi Harbour, by J. A. Cudlip, 1834; Port Nicholson, by E. M. Chaffers, 1839; Manukau Harbour, by G. O. Ormsby, 1845; Torrent Bay and Astrolabe Road, by M. Guilbert, 1827; Current Basin, by M. Guilbert, 1827; Port Hardy and Port Gore, by Lieutenant Moore, 1834; Tory Channel, by E. M. Chaffers, 1839; Port Underwood in Cloudy Bay, by G. Johnson, 1837; Akaroa Harbour, by Commander O. Stanley, 1840; Rouabouki Road, by Lieut. O. Wilson, 1839; Dusky and Chalky Bay, by M. Duperrey, 1824. The survey of the settlement and the beautiful map of New Plymouth and its vicinity, by F. A. Carrington, 1840;

* "The Story of New Zealand," vol. II, p. 341 et seq.; see also the larger work by Hochstetter -- "New Zealand," p. 549.

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THE CHARTOGRAPHY OF NEW ZEALAND. 5

the Harbour and City of Auckland, the Capital of New Zealand, with the districts of the rivers Kaipara, Waitemata, Tamaki, Wairoa, Waihou or Thames, Mercury Bay, Kawia, Piako, Waipa, Waikato, Manukau, Tauranga, etc., compiled from various sources by J. Arrowsmith, 1842 (with branch maps: Auckland the Capital of New Zealand, surveyed by Felton Matthew, Surveyor-General of New Zealand, 1841; and a Trigonometrical Survey of the Harbour of the Waitemata and the Isthmus which separates the waters of the Thames from those of the Manukau, by Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., and Felton Matthew, 1841); the maps of Dieffenbach's travels, by Arrowsmith, &c.

All the maps and surveys of New Zealand existing before 1848, consisted of disconnected fragments; but it must be remembered that it is a country of an area of not less than 630 square miles larger than the present Kingdom of Italy.*

The important survey of the New Zealand coast was undertaken by the command of the English Admiralty, under the direction of Captain J. Lort Stokes and Commander Byron Drury, in the surveying ships "Acheron" and "Pondora," and occupied a period of eight years, from 1848 to 1855, and now forms one of the most magnificent of the many productions of the English navy. Besides the above-named commanders, the following officers were engaged in this work: Commander G. H. Richards, F. J. Evans, R. Bradshaw, J. W. Smith, P. W. Oke, R. Burnett, H. Kerr, W. Blackney, H. Ellis, A. Farmer, C. Stanley, J. M. Pridham, D. Pender, J. W. Hamilton, and C. Kettle. The result of this survey occupies fifty sheets, thirty-three of which are in the large chart formula (double elephant). They are carefully engraved on copper, and were published in twelve years, from 1850 to 1861, in the following series: - fourteen sheets were published from 1850 to 1856, twenty-one sheets in the year 1857, and twelve from 1858 to 1861. Some sheets contain several plans in various scales, from the smallest 1:1.750.000 to the largest 1:5000. In the smallest size is published the general chart,

* The area of New Zealand is 4,703 German, and that of Italy 4,674 German square miles. B2

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6 THE CHARTOGRAPHY OF NEW ZEALAND.

No. 1,212 - price, 3s. 6d. Then follow fourteen sheets of the largest formula, which are on one and the same scale of 1:280.000,* and which embrace the whole of New Zealand.† Comparing these fourteen sheets with Reymann's Map of Germany and Central Europe, on the scale of 1:200.000, and supposing them divided in the same manner as Reymann's, they would have formed exactly one hundred of such sheets. This will give an idea of the magnitude of this survey. Of the remaining fifty-nine charts and plans, six are at a scale of 1:145.000 to 1:48.000; eleven, 1:36.000; two, 1:27.000 and 1:26.000; seventeen, 1:24.000; three, 1:22.000; eleven, 1:21.000 to 1:12.000; and nine, 1:9000 to 1:5000.

While, through the surveys of the Admiralty, the outlines of New Zealand were carefully and completely settled, the knowledge of the interior was gradually developed by the surveys of the various settlements and through exploring expeditions, and especially in the South Island journeys of discovery were undertaken into the interior. The account of the expedition of Thomas Brunner, in the year 1846-47, from Nelson in a southerly direction along the coast to Tihihai Head, was published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, in 1850, with a small map. A short account of _____________________________________________________ * As all the charts are according to Mercator's projection, the single sheets differ naturally in the scales, and in such a way that the northern sections are 1:300.000, and the southern 1:260.000.

† The sections have the following number and outlines:- Sheet 1, No. 2525, The northern coasts from Hokianga on the west to Tukukaka on the east. Sheet 2, No. 2543, Monganui Bluff to Manukau on the West Coast, and from Tukukaka to Major Island on the East Coast. Sheet 3, No. 2527, Major Island to Poverty Bay. Sheet 4, No. 2521, Poverty Bay to Cape Palliser. Sheet 5, No. 2054, Cook's Strait and Coast to Cape Egmont. Sheet 6, No. 2535, Manukau Harbour to Cape Egmont. Sheet 7, No. 2616, Cape Foulwind to D'Urville Island, including Blind and Massacre Bays. Sheet 8, No. 2529, Cape Campbell to Bank's Peninsula. Sheet 9, No. 2532, Ninty Miles Beach to Otago. Sheet 10, No. 2533, Otago to Mataura River and Ruapuke Island. Sheet 11, No. 2553, Foveaux Strait and Stewart's Island. Sheet 12, No. 2589, Foveaux Strait to Awarua River. Sheet 13, No. 2590, Awarua Riverto Abut Head. Sheet 14, No. 2591, Abut Head to Cape Foulwind. (The price of each sheet is 2s. 6d.)

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