The Novara Expedition 1857-1859
Motu roa, at Mercury Bay, North Island (New Zealand) from Reise der Österreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde in den Jahren 1857,1858, 1859 Unter den Befehlen des Commodore B. von Wüllerstorf-Urbair Vienna: Gerold, 1861-75.
The gifted geologist for the expedition, Ferdinand Hochstetter, found New Zealand so interesting that he acquired permission to remain there as the Novara headed for Tahiti. He drew the first true geological maps of the islands, and made extensive and detailed observations of their topography, stratigraphy, and mineralogy. Though he stayed only nine months, his work (with that of the German Julius Haast, who lived there) provided a sound basis for all future geological work in New Zealand.	Near this bay, at a place named Opito, the geologist Ferdinand Hochstetter found rich deposits of the bones of the great, extinct moa bird. An English visitor in 1839 had found an example on the islands and took the bone back to London, where the great paleontologist Richard Owen identified it. During this voyage some twenty years later, Hochstetter located several such deposits on the islands.
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