48

44 EXPLANATION OF THE MAPS.

position. Its geographical position also harmonises with
that of Italy, being situated between the parallel circles of
34½⁰ and 47½⁰ Southern width, and the meridians of 166½⁰
and 178¾⁰ Eastern length of Greenwich. Its length is 800
sea miles, its central width from East to West is 120 sea
miles (30 German miles), and the area of the whole group
of Islands amounts to 99,969 English square miles. New
Zealand is therefore nearly as large as Great Britain and
Ireland.

Two Straits - Cook's Straits in the North, and Foveaux
Straits in the South - separate New Zealand into three parts
of different sizes - two larger Islands, which, in the absence
of other names, have been termed the North and South Islands,
and a small Isle called Stewart's Island. To these the first
English Governor, Captain Hobson, officially gave the names
of New Ulster, New Munster, and New Leinster (after the
three Provinces of Ireland). These names sometimes figure on
the maps, but are only remembered by the colonist as
antiquated reminiscences. The original name of New
Zealand is Te Ika a Maui - that is, the Fish of Maui (Cook
wrote Ea heino Mauwe) - a name which has a mythical signi-
fication. Also Te Wahi Punãmu, or land of the green-stone;
and Ra Kiura. The former was applied only to the South
Island, where the mineral nephrite, which was so highly prized
by the Maoris, was to be found.

The three Islands form a geological group, being parts
of the same system, which forms one distinct line of
elevation in the Pacific Ocean. And Nature, with her
mighty forces of fire and water, has indelibly engraved
the history of the Islands on their surface. In the South,
wild alpine regions covered with ice and glaciers, and in the
North, volcanoes reaching to the regions of eternal snow, are
seen glimmering in the distance by the mariner on approaching
the coast. The fertile, richly-watered alluvial flats are the
virgin soil on which the settler forms his new home, and
where, blessed with the most salubrious of all climates, he has
to combat only the wilderness to ensure the reward of his labour.

The characteristic of New Zealand is a largelongitudinal
mountain chain, which, broken by Cook's Straits, runs through
the principal Island in a South-Westerly and North-Easterly