Hocken.— Early Visits of the French to New Zealand. 137 



Fig. 12. (No. 101.) Vogesite. The phenocrysts are hornblende and augite, 

 the latter having a border of segerine set in a groundmass 

 of which the larger portion is an alkaline feldspar. 



Fig. 13. (No. 100.) Camptonite. Augite and hornblende phenocrysts set 

 in a ground of labradorite. 



Fig. 14. (No. 95.) Yogesite. Crystals of augite and hornblende set in a 



groundmass of anorthoclase, with a little augite. 



Note. — All the sections are to a magnification of 26 diameters. 



Art. XII.— Early Visits of the French to New Zealand. 

 By Dr. Hocken, F.L.S. 



[Read before the Otago Institute, \0th September, 1907.] 



The visits of French voyagers to New Zealand form a feature 

 of great interest in our early history, and it may with truth 

 be added that by them much of the first work of exploration 

 on these coasts has been performed. Their contributions to 

 the scientific knowledge of the country were not only of an 

 extensive character, and of the highest value, but were also the 

 first made in point of time, if we except the comparatively 

 scanty contributions made during Cook's first and second 

 voyages, chiefly by Banks, and afterwards by the Forsters, 

 father and son. If there be time, I shall refer to these more 

 fully later on ; but the subject grows so extensively under 

 one's research and pen as to be incompressible within the limits 

 of a single paper. 



The strange charm and romance which always invested old 

 New Zealand with a halo of glory peculiarly its own seemed to 

 have an especial attraction for the vessels of the French. That 

 halo has long since vanished, never to return, dissipated by the 

 modern methods of colonisation and trade, steam, and electricity. 

 Whilst New Zealand must ever remain the world's ultima ihule, 

 it has been dragged from its former obscurity, and upon it must 

 henceforward beat that fierce light which so long has beaten 

 upon the old communities. One reason for this great attraction 

 to the French may have been the tragic occurrence of nearly 

 one hundred and forty years ago, when Marion and so many of 

 his crew were murdered by the Natives at the Bay of Islands 

 as Cook called it, but the Bay of Treachery as Marion's country- 

 men renamed it. 



The first visit of the French to New Zealand was made by 

 Captain De Surville, of the " St. Jean Baptiste," so far back as 



