Depiction and Description: Insights into Southern Alps Glaciers Conveyed by John Gully’s Paintings and Julius Haast’s Paper at the Royal Geographical Society

Abstract

In June 1862, Julius Haast (1822–1887), the Canterbury Provincial Geologist, wrote to Joseph Hooker, Assistant Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, informing him that “being now naturalized I think it my duty to offer my work to the scientific societies in England.” Haast informed Hooker that as soon as his topographical map was finished, he would send the botanist “an account of the geological features of the Alps, on deposits of the glacial period, accompanied by maps, sections and sketches,” requesting him to present the account to the Geological Society of London.[i] Although this anticipated initial foray into publishing in British scientific journals did not eventuate until 1865,[ii] on 12 November 1863 Haast sent a copy of his large topographical map of the Southern Alps,[iii] accompanied by extensive notes on the physical geography of that region and a set of 12 watercolour paintings (e.g. fig. 1), to the geologist Sir Roderick Murchison,[iv] President of the Royal Geographical Society. Haast hoped that those landscape paintings would “best enable the members, to gain an insight into the wild mountain masses [of the Southern Alps], with their snowfields, glaciers and lakes [emphasis added].”[v]

[i] Sascha Nolden, Esme Mildenhall and Simon Nathan, The Correspondence of Julius Haast and Joseph Dalton Hooker, 1861–1886 (Wellington: Geoscience Society of New Zealand, 2013), 22. Haast became a British citizen in February 1861.

[ii] See Julius Haast, “Notes to a Sketch-Map of the Province of Canterbury, New Zealand, Showing the Glaciation During the Pleistocene and Recent Periods as Far as Explored,” Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 21, nos. 1–2 (1865): 87–96.

[iii] On 11 June 1863, Haast informed Hooker that he was sending Murchison a large map with a set of watercolour drawings by the next mail (Nolden, Mildenhall and Nathan, Correspondence Haast-Hooker, 42–43).

[iv] Ibid., 57.

[v] Julius Haast, “Notes Accompanying a Map of the Province of Canterbury” (Royal Geographical Society Manuscript Archive, 1862), 1.