Julius von Haast, Giver Of Place Names

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32252, 21 March 1970, Page 16

Julius von Haast, Giver Of Place Names

(Contributed by the Canterbury Museum)

Sir Julius von Haast’s name has been associated with many aspects of early Canterbury history: as founder of the Canterbury Museum; as discoverer of moa bones at Glenmark in 1866; as the provincial geologist in the 1860 s; as the founder of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury in 1862.

, known—the place names of ■ many of our main peaks, glaciers and mountain rivers,. In a letter Haast wrote to Sir William Hooker, he said:' i “When beginning with the survey of the Southern Alps, hitherto entirely unknown, 1

i He was also an explorer, and as such trod the many valleys and passes of the | Southern Alps. It is here that we once again find a legacy | that he has left to future generations of New Zea- | landers—one not so well

proposed myself to create a kind of Pantheon or Walhalla for my illustrious contemporaries amongst those never- ' trodden peaks and glaciers.” On the Canterbury Plains the English associations of the early Canterbury settlers are reflected in the names given to the various localities, but in the regions of the Southern Alps the place names of the province are unique; for here are commemorated the great scientists of the nineteenth century—geologists, physicists, botanists, zoologists, geographers, pioneers and explorers. It is to Haast that we owe these names. He believed, as did Hochstetter, that ' science knows no frontiers and so he placed on the map of New Zealand the world's representative scientists irrespective of their nationalities—English, French, German. Swiss, Austrian, American, Australian and New Zealand. Names Survive In all Haast gave more than 100 names, the great majority of which have been retained on the map. A perusal of any recognised encyclopaedia will soon give the reader a biography of such well known geologists as Murchison, Lyell, Buckland, Jukes and Elie de Beaumont; of physicists such as Davy, Faraday, Tyndall and Liebig; of botanists such as Mueller and Hooker; of zoologists such as Darwin and Dana; of geographers such as Petermann. Keith Johnston, Humbolt, Malte-Brun and Ritter; of explorers such as Franklin. Ross and D'Urville; of historians such as Macaulay, and of our local pioneers such as Godley and Moorhouse. On a map of the Southern Alps you will find them as well. Haast appears to have had no definite system on which he gave his names, strange for one so closely associated with science. His choice may have been largely influenced by something he happened to be reading at the time, or by some event that revived his recollection of a famous man. Sometimes he associated together such friends as Hutton and Playfair in adjoining mountains, or two such botanists as Hooker and Mueller in adjoining glaciers, or geographers as Keith Johnston and Petermann in adjoining mountain ranges, but in general, he gave names as his fancy listed. Men Of Science In the main, those he commemorated were men of science and men of peace, whose reputation was international. Except for Havelock, Clyde and Lawrence, the heroes f the Indian Mutiny, in whir h it is presumed that his friend Dr Sinclair had some say, he never commemorated warriors. Rarely also did he give family names. Three are listed—Robert (his son), Collet (his wife’s aunt) and Rossum (his sister’s married name). He named the Dobson River after Edward Dobson, his father-in-law; but he was so distinguished an engineer and pioneer in his own right that he merited the commemoration apart from the , relationship. To the many other attributes of Sir Julius von Haast —geologist, museum builder, explorer, should be added ; another—giver of place names.—J.H.J.