1864 - von Hochstetter, Ferdinand. The Geology of New Zealand - OBSERVATIONS UPON THE CHARTOGRAPHY OF NEW ZEALAND. BY DR. A. PETERMANN.

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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, 1612, 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 by two French navigators, viz.:--in December, 1769, by Captain Surville, and in the year 1772 by the unfortunate Captain Marion, who

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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 1811, 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 1810 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 1 counts not less than two hundred and forty-five. 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;

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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, 1811; 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. 2

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, T. 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,

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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, 3 and which embrace the whole of New Zealand. 4 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

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Dashwood and Mitchell's tour from Nelson to Lyttelton, along with a small map, appeared in the volume for 1851. J. T. Thompson's account and map of what is now the Province of Southland in the volume for 1858. E. Stanford published in London, in the year 1850, a map of the Province of Canterbury, showing freehold sections and pasturage runs; scale, 1:220.000. J. Arrowsmith published two editions of his map of New Zealand on a scale of 1:2.400.000--one dated July, 1851, the other, July, 1858.

With the explorations and surveys of F. v. Hochstetter and J. Haast (which were commenced in 1859, and are still unfinished), began a new epoch in the geographical knowledge and chartography of New Zealand. 5 Not only have their labours enlarged the existing knowledge, but they have thrown quite a new light on the geological and topographical condition of the interior, as hitherto the topographical configuration of the country has been much neglected by the colonial surveys. The general map of this work (Map I.), in the completion of which Hochstetter's and Haast's observations have been used for the first time, will show at the first glance how much our former conception of New Zealand is enlarged and corrected. Of course, on it the observations of many others also have been recorded.

The progress of the chartography of New Zealand is best shown in the various editions of Arrowsmith's maps, of which there are three--1841, 1851, and 1858--which were compiled from official and other documents existing at those times. The edition of 1841 contains nothing but a coast line, and this very imperfect--here and there an error of half a degree; in the interior are only a few roughly noted lakes, rivers, and mountains. In the edition of 1851 the coast, if yet incomplete, is corrected after the marine surveys, and the interior is filled up. But the edition of 1858 contains many additions

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of importance. The most complete map published before ours appeared in the Despatch Atlas, March, 1861, in two sheets, and at a scale of 1:1.900.000 and 1:2.300.000.

According to our map the area of New Zealand may be estimated according to planimetric calculation, at--

*** From English sources the area and circumference of New Zealand has been estimated at--

The area of New Zealand is 50,000 acres less than the area of Great Britain and Ireland; the Northern Island is 1-32nd smaller than England; the Middle Island is l-9th smaller than England and Scotland combined; 50,000,000 acres, or 2-3rds, of which are estimated fit for agriculture; the rest is made up of impassable mountains, sand-flats, swamps, lakes, and rivers.--(Vide "New Zealand," by J. v. Hochstetter.)