EXPLANATION OF THE MAPS. 
It 
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position. Its geographical position also harmonises with 
that of Italy, being situated between the parallel circles of 
314° and 47|° Southern width, and the meridians of 166 
and I78f° Eastern length of Greenwich. Its length is 800 
sea miles, its central w r idth from East to West is 120 sea 
miles (30 German miles), and the area of the whole group 
of Islands amounts to 99,969 English square miles. New 
Zealand is therefore nearly as large as Great Britain and 
Ireland. 
Two Straits—Cook’s Straits in the North, and Foveaux 
Straits in the South—separate New Zealand into three parts 
of different sizes—two larger Islands, which, in the absence 
of other names, have been termed the North and South Islands, 
and a small Isle called Stewart’s Island. To these the first 
English Gfovernor, Captain Hobson, officially gave the names 
of New Ulster, New Munster, and New Leinster (after the 
three Provinces of Ireland). These names sometimes figure on 
the maps, but are only remembered by the colonist as 
antiquated reminiscences. The original name of New 
Zealand is Te Ika a Maui—that is, the Fish of Maui (Cook 
wrote Ea heino Mauwe)—a name which has a mythical signi¬ 
fication. Also Te Wahi Punamu, or land of the green-stone ; 
and Ea Kiura. The former was applied only to the South 
Island, where the mineral Nephrite, which was so highly prized 
by the Maoris, was to be found. 
The three Islands form a geological group, being parts 
of the same system, which forms one distinct line of 
elevation in the Pacific Ocean. And Nature, with her 
mighty forces of fire and water, has indelibly engraved 
the history of the Islands on their surface. In the South, 
wild alpine regions covered with ice and glaciers, and in the 
North, volcanoes reaching to the regions of eternal snow, are 
seen glimmering in the distance by the mariner on approaching 
the coast. The fertile, richly-watered alluvial fiats are the 
virgin soil on which the settler forms his new home, and 
where, blessed with the most salubrious of all climates, he has 
to combat only the wilderness to ensure the reward of his labour. 
The characteristic of New Zealand is a large longitudinal 
mountain chain, which, broken by Cook’s Straits, runs through 
the principal Island in a South-Westerly and North-Easterly 
