TREASURE HOUSE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 10

TREASURE HOUSE.

DOMINION MUSEUM.

OPENING CEREMONY HELD

EXCELLENT DISPLAY SYSTEM.

(Ify Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON", this clay

The ceremony of opening the Dominion Museum and Art Gallery took place this afternoon, when the speeches of the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, the Mayor, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, and the Governor-General, Viscount Galway, were broadcast.

The Museum has been laid out and will be run on the most modern lines and in accordance with the most advanced museum principles. Every effort has been made by the authorities to make the institution second to none in the Dominion, and the general design of the interior and the comprehensive nature of the exhibits are a direct indication of this. It will provide a s{4ng contrast to the comparatively s.*ll wooden building, which for many ySrs did duty in Museum Street as the Dominion Museum, in which it was not possible to display to advantage all the treasures, historic and modern, which the authorities have acquired over a long period of years. Owing to the limitation of space only a small proportion of the exhibits could be displayed, and hundreds of specimens had to be stored.

With the erection of the new buildintr due prominence ha 3 been given to the whole of the exhibits, which have been arranged in a proper setting under the expert supervision of Dr. W. I{. B. Oliver director of the Museum. There can be no doubt that the neAv Museum rivals the modern institutions or other countries, and will play its part in the education system of the Dominion. Fine Maori Exhibits. Hie Maori exhibits, a main feature, are displayed in spacious galleries, and in the Maori Hall are priceless treasures arranged in a manner which shows up their characteristics perfectly. There are several large canoes, each with an interesting history, the most noteworthy of them being the war canoe Teremoe, obtained from Wanganui in 1030. There are several other canoes, used in the past for ceremonial purposes and for fishing, and all are elaborately carved. Among other large exhibits in the Maori section are two patakas or storehouses, and despite the fact liiat they are over 100 years old they have lost none of their characteristics. One, Te Takinga. measures 15ft by 21ft, and has twice been transported to England, and once to Australia, to be displayed at exhibitions. It has a most interesting history, and is reputed to have been made from timbers of canoes which the renowned chief Hongi had dragged from the Bay of Plenty overland to Lake Rotorua, when he took the island of Mokoia in the middle of the lake in 1822.

In the Maori Hall is a carved Maori house, built by the Ngatikaipoko tribe at Turanga, Poverty Bay, as a monument to the memory of Taumata Whaka Tuangere, the elder brother of Rahartihi Rukupo, a famous chief of the tribe. The house took three years to build. Captain Cook Relics. In the Museum proper the exhibits are housed in spacious, well-lighted galleries, and the cases containing them have been specially made so that there are no supporting slats to obstruct the view. Among the specimens not displayed before, which have been carefully packed away for many years, is a collection of Captain Cook relics, considered to be the most valuable collection in the building. One is a feathercloak, presented to Cook when he was, in the Hawaiian Islands in 1819. It was purchased from the London Museum by the St. Oswald family, and presented to the New Zealand Government by the late Lord St. Oswald in 1912. Accompanying the cloak are helmets which were worn by chiefs in battle. Fearsome looking head dresses and weapons, from practically every country in the world, primitive apparatus' used for catching fish, birds and animals, and a host of other exhibits have their place In the museum.

"The display of kauri gum is the largest and probably the most valuable in the world. It comprises 1600 pieces, collected by Mr. F. 0. Peat, of Titirangi. The exhibits are displayed in 10 cases, mounted on four tables, and are allotted a gallery to themselves.

Very comprehensive • are the natural history exhibits and casts have been made of the most interesting types of fish found in New Zealand waters. The exhibit of birds includes many rare specimens and there is also a wide range of New Zealand insects, butterflies and moths on show. The old traditional idea of having rows and rows of fossils, birds, shells, insects and so on, with Latin labels, has given way to the modern method of making the displays instructive as well as interesting.