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Geology of the Provinces of Canterbury and Westland, New Zealand : a report comprising the results of official explorations

Preface

page iii

Preface.

When shortly before the abolition of the Provinces, in 1876, the Government of the Province of Canterbury intrusted me with the preparation of a final report on the Physical Geography and Geology of this Province, I was well aware that I had accepted an arduous task, as I felt that my duties as Director of the Canterbury Museum would generally claim my whole attention. As the work proceeded, I found that I could devote only at intervals the necessary time to its preparation, and on different occasions the manuscript had to be laid aside for several months at a time. In fact, when the mind has to be devoted to the consideration of such important questions as those treated in this work, it ought to be free from the ever-recurring daily anxieties of a responsible official position. And, on this score, I may be allowed to claim the indulgence of the reader for many shortcomings in this report, and for the delay in issuing it from the press, more than two years after its publication was undertaken by me.

As the Province of Westland, (up to 1866 a portion of the Canterbury Province), had before its separation repeatedly been visited by me, I was induced on that account to include its description in this publication. Moreover, it would be extremely difficult to offer a satisfactory account of the Physical Geography and Geology of the Southern Alps without treating also of the character of their western slopes. It has been my endeavour to give in this publication not only the substance of all my previous official reports in a more condensed form, but also to add a great deal of new unpublished matter, all of which has been accumulating for years past. I have endeavoured to avoid, as much as possible, entering into controversies, and have only done so in order to answer objections made in other scientific publications against my views or theories published in former reports.

page iv

A descriptive account of my explorations, with numerous extracts from my journals, has been given in the first three chapters, as I believe that in that manner I can offer a great deal of information in a more popular form to the reader on the Physical Geography, Geology, Zoology, and Botany of the Country, than purely scientific reports can generally convey to him. I have endeavoured to make him acquainted with the peculiarly grand features of the Southern Alps, to make him participate in the difficulties, dangers, and joys of an explorer's life, and, at the same time, to show him that the work of the Geologist in an unknown country, in which, moreover, he has to seek his way, construct his own map, and carry often a heavy load on his back, is not an easy one, and that it cannot be accomplished without considerable loss of time. The series of lithographs attached to this report, representing faithfully some of the finest scenery in Canterbury and Westland, will, at the same time, assist in bringing the countries traversed more vividly before the reader than mere word-painting could do. It was once my intention to add several chapters on the Zoology and Botany of both Provinces, together with meteorological and statistical tables; but they would have increased the bulk of this report, already exceeding its intended size, by more than 140 pages.

The pleasant duty now devolves upon me to thank most heartily all those inhabitants of Canterbury and Westland whose hospitality I have enjoyed, or who have facilitated in many ways my progress through the country. It would be impossible to name them all, because, without exception, every one of them has always cheerfully offered me what assistance he could. To my friends, Professor Dr. F. Ritter von Hochstetter, in Vienna, for superintending the printing of chromolithographed maps and sections; the Rev. J. W. Stack, and Messrs R. Mainwaring and W. M. Maskell, for reading the proof sheets for me, my warmest thanks are also due.

Julius Von Haast.

Christchurch, Canterbury, N.Z., December, 1878.