CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 15 September 1909, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

CAPTAIN COOK'S COPPERPLATE. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — In your issue of yesterday appears an extract stating on the authority of Captain Thorns that Dr Hockstetter had taken the copperplate from where Captain Cook had fixed it to commemo- | rate his visit to Marlborough, and that . the date of Hockstetter's taking -it was i 1859. Now, there must be some mistake in this, as a friend of rome reside .it in Nelson informs me that Captain Smith told him in 1868, while ait the Dog. Island lighthouse that in the year of^'the rush to Hokitika (1865) he aud a pawy sailed a- small craft to tht rurh, aud passed in through tho Sounds, aird keo-v---i>g the cove where Oapta'n 0 .-■'•_. put up in, they searched for the plate, and niter much trouble found it on a »ua>all overgrown with vegetation. But.it was there intact. Now, Captain Smith. . my friend says, may he still, alive. He was well known, and was sailing master of the brig Armhurst that rescued .the crew of the General Grant from the Auckland Islands. Now, if this be true, it somewhat relieves the name of ;Dr Hockstetter from invidiousness, for. if , the plate was there in 1865 Hockstetter .could not have taken it in 1859. This points to the road for a complete search being made for the plate; and most likely by this time it will have fallen tp the ground, and. being covered with mould, it will take some trouble to find . Im '«*' LIBBAT 15th Sept., "1909:'"