Wide Range

The preliminary list of manuscripts in the collection prepared by the Alexander Turnbull Library, shows that the material available ranges from details of early government in the province to scores of details of how the inhabitants of an earlier age lived and conducted their private affairs.

The first item on the list is an abstract of lotteries, held at the Nelson races in 1859, with a list of bets in a general lottery which carries the signatures of prominent Nelson settlers. Then follows in alphabetical order, the entry: "Acland, Lydia, letter to her brother John Barton Acland, February 7, 1937."

Such contrasts, giving promise of much interesting reading and research, occur frequently in the catalogue. Official correspondenee going back to the days of the New Zealand Company, which made the first plans to settle the Nelson district, and the Provincial Council are recorded with many more human documents, the private letters of early settlers to each other or to relatives in England.