Aparagraph which appeared recently in the Press in New Zealand dealing with an old atlas owned by a North Island family resulted in many other people claiming to possess maps of the world as old, or even older. This matter of old maps is very interesting in this enlightened age, and although the early cartographers were a little astray, credit must be given them for the manner in which they charted the various countries with the crude means at their disposal.

The distinction of taking possession of New Zealand for the British Empire belongs to Captain Cook, and credit must also be given this great navigator for making the first complete map of the Dominion.

Reproduced on this page are two old maps, one of New Zealand published in 1820, and one of the world dated about the middle of the fifteenth century. The map of New Zealand was originally that of Captain Cook, but after he published it, it was amended and added to by whalers and traders. This map was adopted by the French in 1833, by the Dutch in 1835, and by Spain in 1836.

Cook first visited New Zealand over 100 years after the discoverer of the country, Abel Tasman. His orders after leaving Tahiti were to sail to New Zealand and examine the country of which hardly anything was known. He sailed around it and found that it was two large islands and not part of a great continent as had been supposed. Violent storms were encountered, but Cook was able to chart the coast. Cook first sighted New Zealand on October 6th, 1769, and two days later his ship Endeavour anchored in Poverty Bay. From Poverty Bay he sailed south past Cape Kidnapper as far as Cape Turnagain, but retraced his course and surveyed the coast of the North Island as he went north and west to Mercury Bay. The voyage was then resumed past the Firth of Thames, and sailing further north still, he discovered Waitemata, or Auckland. In due course he arrived at the cape which Tasman named Cape Maria van Diemen. He then continued southward, finding no harbours until he sailed into Queen Charlotte Sound without knowing he was in another island.

From a nearby hill Cook first saw the strait that now bears his name, and realised that New Zealand consisted of two islands. After formally taking possession of the islands in the name of the King, he sailed round the South, and Stewart Islands. For much of the time he met rough weather, and although his map is accurate in the main, he apparently thought that Banks Peninsula was an island. He also missed the discovery of Foveaux Strait. On Cook's original map Stewart Island is shown attached to the mainland as a peninsula. The outline of this map corresponds more with the map accepted to-day than with the amended one of the early whalers and traders.