ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. THE NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 615, 6 March 1852, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. THE NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY.

GREENSTONE. To ihe Editor of the New Zeai-ander. Sin,— As truth even in small matters is valuable, and as mistakes even in little things may piove mischievous, allow me to correct an error in the report of a meeting of the New Zealand Society held at Government House, copied into your paper of Saturday la&t iiom the Wellington Spectator of Jan. 23. The passage referred says, " There were also some interesting specimens of ornaments and greenstone from the Loyally Islands, the only islands in the Pacific, besides New Zealand, in which greenstone is known to exist, and the natives of which closely resemble the New Zealanders in their language, customs, and personal appearance." If New Caledonia had been substituted for the Loyalty Islands the statement would have been bo far correct. The Loyalty Islands are three low coral islands that run parallel with New Caledonia, and he about thirty mile* north-east of it. They contain, 1 believe, no greenstone : but in New Caledonia greenstone is found in abundance ; at least adzes and bi ads made from greenstone aie plentiful ; and the natives all point to the interior of New Caledonia as the place where the greenstone is found. They set little value on it j they sell their weapons and ornaments made from it witliou any reluctance. While the New Zealanders call the)r manufactured greenstone, Te mom gold o te Maori, tht New Caledonians gladly exchange their greenstone for iron. They estimate uhy its utilitarian, not by its antiquarian value. They have found that edge tools made of iron cut much better than those made of stone, and they are therefore very willing to exchange a grepnstone adze for a common tomahawk; and on the same principle to give a string of greenstone beads for, what is much piettier, a string of common glass ones Hut at European intercourse increases, tlvse articles by becoming scaicer mil use in value,

New Caledonia is about 200 miles in length, and from s>o to 30 miles in breadth. In its general appearance and its geological formations it is similar I think to the middle island of New Zealand. It is bleak and barren for a tiopical i&land ; mountainous fiom end to end, answering well to Scott's description of " Caledonia stern and wild" and is evidently tlie summit of some submerged mountain rnnge. Norfolk Island appenis to be a connecting peak between New Caledonia and New Zealand. The niuvo of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands belong to the same race ; but neither in " language, customs, nor personal appearance" have they any resemblance to the- New Znalanders: the one are J'apuans, the other are Malajs. The Papuan race commence at the Feejee Islands, and streich away through all the groups in the Western Pacific. The Malays stretch across from New Zealand to the Sandwich Island, and eastw»y beyond Tahiti. The two races have no more resemblance or relationsbip to each other, than the descendants of Canaan can be supposed to have to those of Arphaxed; and they appear to have had no intercourse with each other since the days that Nimrod founded the empire of Babylon, and Asshur went forth and builded the city of Nineveh; or since those rival states must have been sending forth their colonies to people the great eastern continents and the numerous isles -of the sea. One would suppose that the Papuans had come direct from Babel, and perpetuated the confusion of tongues among themselves to this very day, as on every island and among every tribe a distinct dialect is spoken. And as both the Fepjeans and the New Caledonians manufacture a rude kind of pottery, one might suppose that this was some ipmains of the plastic arts, they had brought with them from the plains of Shinar. To show that between the natives of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, and the New Zealanders, there is no resemblance in language, I .-hall subjoin the first five numerals : the nuni' rals being one ol the most common points of leiemblauce in cognate languages. Moreover the Papuans count by fives, not bp tens: —

I am, Sir, yours &c, John Ing lib. Auckland, March 1, 1852.

One. TwoThree. Four. Five. New Zealand. Tahi. Rua. Tom. Wba. Itiina. Yengen, New C.iWonia. Ilets. Heluk. Hi'Vi'n. Tobits !Nnn. Lifu, Lo>ak> lalandi, Cbas. Luett). Kunete. Ekno. 'iibi.