I14 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
not merely to find the country and go through it, but to report 
upon it. The public wish to know whether any of it is available 
for occupation ; if any, how much; where it is, and how to get 
at it. The explorer must have an engineer’s eye to note the line 
of a possible road as he goes along ; he must be skilled in judg- 
ing of the pastoral, agricultural, and timber-producing character 
of every part ; he must have a surveyor’s ability to give every 
mountain and stream its exact position on the map, that he ma 
show where he has been and where the available land that he 
has seen lies; he must have an eye for physical geography, for 
zoology, and for botany ; and last, but not least, he must be a 
practical geologist, to discover beneath the surface those metals 
and minerals which may prove the greatest inducements for the 
introduction of an industrious population into the wilderness. 
The explorer must be no half-instructed blunderer, to overlook 
some things, mistake others, and give an unintelligible descrip- 
tion of all, or the main object of his labours will be thrown away. 
In fact, he must be a specially constituted individual in mind, 
body, and education, who can perform successfully the task of 
investigation in the country among the hills of the South Island 
of New Zealand. . To judge from Mr. Haast’s book he is sur- 
prisingly adapted to the task which he undertook in all respects. 
In person and temper he has the qualities which we have de- 
scribed ; he is, moreover, a competent surveyor, an experienced 
geologist, and an educated observer of nature in all her aspects. 
His own narrative is the best evidence how fortunate a choice 
the Province of Nelson made in appointing him to the duty of 
exploring her ¢erra incognita. Written as it is by a German in 
the English language, the diction itself indicates the man of 
education and high mental ability ; while the simplicity of the 
narrative proves, even to those who may not know the man, that 
his report is neither garbled nor high coloured, but may be ac- 
cepted with thorough confidence as trustworthy in all its details.” 
The extraordinary success of this enterprise induced the then 
Canterbury Provincial Government to offer to Dr. Haast the 
position of Provincial Geologist. Accepting the offer, he com- 
menced work by similarly investigating the topography and 
_ mineral resources of the western ranges of that province. This 
work was carried to a successful issue, and the result of the work 
is given in Prof. v. Haast’s Report of the Geology of the Provin- 
ces of Canterbury and Westland. This volume of some 500 
pages is the crowning point of Prof..v. Haast’s work, and has 
been favourably received, not only by the press of Australasia, 
but also by a large number of scientific periodicals of Europe and 
America, the testimony as to the excellence of the work being 
absolutely unanimous. Years before the publication of this com- 
plete report, the detached account of these explorations attracted 
considerable attention in Europe. Sir R. Murchison, chief of the 
Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, in his presidential 
address to the Geographical Society, in 1864, speaks as fol- 
lows ;—“ The third paper is a most important account of the 
