MR M'NAB'S RESEARCHES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2929, 4 May 1910, Page 12

MR M'NAB'S RESEARCHES.

AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY. PARTICULARS OP DE SULVILLE'S EXPEDITION. (Feom Our Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, April 26. Mr C. H. Poole, M.P., has received a letter, dated March 6, from Mr Robert M'Nab, who has been pursuing his researches abroad into the records bearing upon the early history of New Zealand. In Paris he has come across some valuable papers relating to early French navigators who visited this country. Mr M'Nab states : " When Cook passed up the east coast of Auckland in 1869, a French vessel called the St. Jean Baptiste, commanded by De Surville, was at anchor in Lauriston Bay, near Mangonui. Very little is known of this French expedition, and its history was one of the things I had jotted down to try and throw some light upon. I have been most successful, having unearthed De Surville's journal in the " Bibliotheque National " in Paris. Here I discovered two copies of the journal, and a quantity of De Surville's correspondence. Accompanying the find are De Surville's charts of that portion of the coastline he explored, and the bay in which he anchored. Plates of Maoris and Maori implements are with them. I am having them translated and photographed. To-morrow the Commissioner of the Archives considers the British Ambassador's application for permission for me to search the Marine Department papers dealing with French expeditions to New Zealand, French war vessels on the coast, and the French settlement at Akaroa.