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.

Unknown Australia.

The old map of the world shows that New Zealand was not discovered at that time, and that little or nothing was known about Australia. It is remarkable that the great country of Australia should have remained so long undiscovered. Many maps published 400 or 500 years ago do not include Australia, but show open sea. Other cartographers in the same period show page 18 page 19 a huge continent covering the Antarctic Ocean and reaching up to where New Zealand and Australia lie.

One of the chief reasons why the old map-makers invented this southern continent was the common belief that there must be equal quantities of land in both northern and southern hemispheres in order to keep the world evenly balanced. As the area known to exist in the northern hemisphere was very much greater than that known in the south, the map-makers sketched in by guess work a large stretch of land such as they thought would balance the world, naming it Terra Australis (the southern land) or Terra Incognita (the unknown land).

As will be seen from the map of the world people of that time had a very hazy idea of what land existed in the southern seas. The map makes it clear that Australia was thought to be part of a vast continent reaching from the Antarctic. The map is astray, too, in its outlines of other world continents, notably South America.

Strangely enough there are maps published before the one reproduced which have upon them a land too much like Australia to be dismissed as mere fancy and invention. These maps were drawn by the French, who may have worked on information obtained from the Portuguese. About this time the Portuguese were sailing the seas north of Australia in search of new countries with which to trade, and it is possible that some Portuguese captain came across Australia and sketched part of the coastline.

At an inquest at Birmingham not long since touching the death of a young lady, Miss Madeline Merton, seventeen years of age, it was shown that the unfortunate girl fell asleep while smoking a cigarette in bed, the coroner remarking that notwithstanding the many fatalities arising from this cause people would persist in running “a very foolish risk.” Yes, smoking in bed is a dangerous habit—and so is smoking out of bed, sometimes! For habitual use of tobacco heavily charged with nicotine may completely undermine the health, and there are, unfortunately, only too many brands like that about! “Safety First” is a wise slogan, and the safe way for smokers is to smoke “toasted,” the five popular brands of which Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead) Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog) Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold, after treatment by the manufacturers' exclusive toasting process emerge from it pure as tobacco can possibly be for the “bite” is taken clean out of them, and you can get a smoke absolutely unequalled for flavour and aroma and comparatively innocuous.^*

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