ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TO-DAY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 28 October 1941, Page 4

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TO-DAY

A NELSON CHRONOLOGY : 28th October, 1841: ; A light S.W. air with continued rain. Owing to the heavy rain all day the , expedition to the Waikatou was post - poned till Saturday. Mr Tuckett having left Mr Heaphy at the surveyor’s tent under the cliff to the westward of the Waimea. They ascended the left bank of the Waimea and crossed it several miles beyond the spot which was reached by Messrs Brown and Moore and then descended the valley on the other side, nearly in the latter's track, recrossing the river westward, a few miles short of what we call the entrance of the Waikatou. He gives a good description of the land generally, but estimates the quantity at much less than Mr Brown—--60,000 acres of available land on both sides of the river, of mixed soils with fern and flax, the depth of the soil varying from one to two feet in depth without any considerable quantity of unavailable land intervening. Near the river and the forest there j are swamps, although roads are quite | practicable on the rising ground to the head of the valley.—Captain Wakefield's Diary.