THE NEW ZEALAND COURT AT THE MELBOURNE EXHIBITION.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1314, 30 November 1880, Page 3

THE NEW ZEALAND COURT AT THE MELBOURNE EXHIBITION.

With a Fellow of the Royal Society of England, as Executive Commissioner, it may be imagined that the Ne^ Zealand Court is rich in scientific collections. The principal one, by Dr, Hector, fully illustrates the palaeontology of the colony, and in addition to fossils of all three geological periods, drawings and casts are shown, together with an inte eating ethnological exhibit comprising- Maori skulls, weapons, implements, ornaments, and canoes. Professor yon Haast, the director of the Canterbury Museum, also sends an ethnological co'lection, which, however, is not confined to Now Zealand objects, but contains pre-historio stone implements from Great Britain and Ireland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Swis-< Lake dwellings, Italy, the United States, Mexico, and Egypt— with the object of showing that all people in every part of the world when arrived at a certain stage of civilisation manufacture their stone implements in exactly the same manner. Some splendid sections of coal seams are exhibited from Auckland, Nelson, Canterbury and Otago. No less than 160,000 tons of coal of home production were consumed in New Zealand in 1878, and it has been adopted by the coasting steamers of the Union S.S. Company Gold, of which specimens before alluded to are sent, was discovered in New Zealand as far back as 1532, and silver, chiefly extracted from the gold obtained at the Thames, is exported in considerable quantities, amounting to £90,000 for the past 10 years. Iron ores are shown, but no mines are at present being worked. Copper has been worked in Auckland to a small extent. Lead occurs as galena in Nelson, and zinc ore containing 60 per cent, of metallic zinc at Collingwood, in the same province. Antimony ore, manganese, graphyte, and petroleum oil shales are amongst the other mineral productions shown. Building stones, it is well-known, exist in abundance in New Zealand. Professor yon Haast sends trachytes, dolerites, anasemite, porphyry, calcareous sandstone and limestone, and doleritic tufa specimens ; and some splendid blocks of marble exhibited by the Canterbury Marble Company. The well-known freestones of this provii.ee mostly come from Bank's Peninsula, and are of volcanic origin. Nearly all the other building stones are calcareous, and lie in the Waipara and Oamaiu formations. The Oamaru Stone Company show an obelisk— a fine column of white calcareous limestone, as well as ornamental jars, vat-es, &c, carved in their stone by Mr. S. Godfrey. It would be unfair to close even this short notice of the New Zealand court, without alluding to the water-colour drawings of Mr John Gully, and the large collection of paintings on the walls. Amidst much that is mediocre there is ample to prove that the beautiful scenery of the country is not being neglected, and that its influence is making itself strongly felt upon the art of the colony. In oils there are over 40, and in water-colours I over 60 New Zealand landscapes. Besides these, several noteworthy representations of colonial fern 8 and wild flowers, amongst which the water-colour drawings of Mrs. F. C. Rowan, of Taranaki, call for notice. I Photographs complete the representation of New Zealand scenery and buildings.