47 
tourists have treated almost exclusively of the volcanoes and volcanic 
phenomena of North Island or of new specimens of “ Moci-hones ”, the 
remains of the extinct gigantic birds of New Zealand. 
In the first instance we are indebted for valuable informa- 
tions to the enterprising German traveller, Dr. Ernst Diejfenbach , 
who as naturalist accompanied in 1839 the expedition sent out 
by the New Zealand Company for the purpose of establishing a 
colony on Cook Strait. Dieffenbach examined the shores of Cook 
Strait, lie was the first to ascend in December 1839 Mount Egmont 
or Taranaki (8000 feet high), and traversed in 1840 North Island 
from Cape lieinga to the volcanic regions of Lake Taupo. In his 
instructive and interesting work correct views were given of two 
of the volcanic zones extending through North Island. Dieffenbach 
moreover mentions in various passages the tertiary strata , so exten- 
sive upon North Island, with their numerous fossils. 
Prof. Owen's discovery confirmed the, at first discredited, ac- 
counts of the natives about the giant birds Si Moa J \ which were said 
to have populated those islands in times long past, and gave an 
impulse for new investigations. By the zeal and energy of mis- 
sionaries, colonists and natives on both North and South Islands 
thousands of individual bones, and also whole skeletons in a more 
or less perfect state of preservation were soon collected, furnishing 
Prof. R, Owen with abundant material for his celebrated treatises 
on the Genera Dinornis and Pal apteryx , which have become extinct 
within the very latest period of the earth (see transactions of the 
Zoological Society , I xmdon 1 843- - 1 856). 
In the person of Mr. Walter Mantel! > eldest son of the celebrated 
author of the u Coins of Creation ”, a settler came to New Zealand, 
who besides an untiring industry for making collections was more- 
over possessed of valuable geological acquirements, and contributed, 
in his communications to his father Dr. Q. A. Mantel! very interest- 
ing items to the Geology and Palaeontology of New Zealand. In 
1848 Dr. Mantell (in the Quarterly Journal of the Geolog. Soc. 
in London), gives an account of the extensive collection of Moa 
bones, which his son had made up, and of the probably very 
