WELLINGTON'S RECENT FIRE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVIII, Issue 8942, 17 December 1907, Page 5

WELLINGTON'S RECENT FIRE.

HON. R. M'NAB'S LOSS

The Hon. R. M'Nab told a Post reporter yesterday that his loss is not so bad as he at first anticipated. When he arrived from the South yesterday morning, he made immediate enquiries and discovered that the most valuable portion historical matter which he had collected, and which he had not duplicated, had been saved. "I find," he said, "that lam left with a fairly complete copy of the matter, although all the work I have done in the way of compiling and indexing it will have to be done over agan. That is not so bad as if the material had been swept away. A little more exertion will see the work completed again "

Where the originals and duplicates had been destroyed, they related only to the unpublished portion of "Mufihiku." Some of the records which had been obtained from Sydney for the continuation of "Murihiku" from 1829 down to 1840, were in the Minister's room when the fire took place, but they were discovered in the debris and reproduction will not be impossible. Photographic reproductions obtained from Paris and others from records in the British Museum, were removed from the room the night before the fire. The Minister expects to get his task of compiling the history, on which he has been engaged for several years now, completed about eighteen months hence.