Search For Proclamation Buried in Bottle

Chronicle (Levin), 13 January 1949, Page 3

Search For Proclamation Buried in Bottle

INVEECARGILL, Jan. 11. « A link yith. the scientiflc and historieal expedition from the University of Otago now at Port Pegasus, Stewart Island, is provided by the death in London at the age of 84 of Miss Carolin Nias. She was the daughter of Admiral Sir Joseph Nias, who, as Captain Nias, commander of the 20-gnn fxigate Herald, helped to make Stewart Island history by assisting in the burial of a long-lost bottle containing the prociamation of British sovereignty over New Zealand 's third island. A. member of the expedition, Dr, Basil Howard, is, to make a search to try to recover the bottle. Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in the north, Captain William Hobson, flrst Governor. of New Zealand, sent Major Thomas Bunbury south in the Herald to obtain the assent of "the southern Maori chiefs to the treaty. When the Herald was at , Port Pegasus Major Bunbury read the prociamation of British sovpreignty over Stewart Island in the presence of Captain Nias and a company of the Royal Marines. Later Major Bunbury carried out a similar eerernony at Cloudy Bay, Marlborough, thus proclaiming sovereignty 'over the South Island.