2. Surveyors

Adventure in New Zealand (London, 1845) by E. J. Wakefield gives a graphic picture of travel and exploration after the New Zealand Company began operations. Any original work by the Company's survey parties was described in the New Zealand Journal (London, 1840–52). For exploration in the South Island the Nelson Examiner page 193is the most useful of the contemporary newspapers. It published, on 17 December 1842, Cotterell's diary of his trip from Nelson to the Wairau; between 20 July and 5 October 1844 Dr Monro's notes on Tuckett's expedition to Otago and Southland; and between 30 September and 28 October 1848 Brunner's diary of his wanderings on the West Coast. A good account of Brunner's famous expedition appeared in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1850) and another version with more detail was printed by Charles Elliott of Nelson in 1848. Many of the reports from Captain Stokes and J. W. Hamilton of H.M.S. Acheron were published in the New Zealand Journal; the important report on Southland was published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1851). Some of the diaries of J. W. Hamilton are in the Public Record Office, London; an incomplete diary of Captain Stokes is in the Hocken Library, Dunedin. The letters sent by Captain Stokes to the Admiralty were part of a section which unfortunately has been destroyed. F. Tuckett's diary of his expedition to select the site of the New Edinburgh settlement is printed in Dr Hocken's Contributions to the Early History of New Zealand (London, 1898).

In the provincial era if the work was considered important it was published in the Gazette of the province concerned. J. T. Thomson's report on the north-east and interior of Otago in 1857–8 appeared in vol. iii, James McKerrow's reports on his Lake survey, 1862–3, in vols. v and vi of the Otago Provincial Gazette. The page 194 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1858) contains J. T. Thomson's report on Southland, that of 1859 J. Rochfort's account of his surveys on the West Coast, that of 1864 J. McKerrow's description of the Lake district of Otago. Since the abolition of the provinces the best official source has been the reports of the Survey Department in the Appendices to the Journal of the House of Representatives. In them readers can find the delightful reports on the remote valleys of south Westland by G. Mueller and C. E. Douglas.