The Real MCKay: The Remarkable Life of Alexander McKay, Geologist
Graham Bishop
Otago University Press, $45, pbk
Alexander McKay (1841-1917), a legendary figure in New Zealand geology, in reputation is ranked close beside the three Hs, Haast, Hector and Hochstetter.
Born in the southwest of Scotland, McKay received a limited formal education to the age of 11, but read voraciously.
His upbringing showed in his reserved nature - gruff and uncertain temper, cultured, resourceful, and argumentative, and a taste for Scotch whisky.
After emigrating, he was an unsuccessful gold prospector, before Haast gave him, without any formal qualifications, the opportunity to advance a hobby - the collection of fossils - into a distinguished career.
The author shows that Haast recommended him to Hutton, of the New Zealand Geological Survey. The result was a nationwide series of trips and about 200 published reports. McKay became proficient with all aspects of geology as it was understood at the time.
His fossil collection was close to 100,000, being of continuing value in resolving the complexities of local geology, particularly the discovery of horizontal movement during the Glynn Wye earthquake on the Hope fault near Lewis Pass (1888), the nature and timing of mountain-building in Marlborough, and the scale of dynamic earth processes.
He noticed the affinity of geological types in Otago and Nelson, but it was left to a later generation of geologists to relate the missing part between the two provinces to horizontal movement of the type he had observed on the Glynn Wye station.
Sumner's "body in the moa-hunter cave" affair (1872-76) resulted in a permanent break between Haast and McKay - the former stating that the moa-hunters were distinct and separate predecessors to the present Maori, and the latter that they were ancestors of the present race.
His fieldwork started in the Catlins, where he found the bush a challenge in and around Tautuku, and from Cannibal Bay to Nugget Point.
From the Old Mill near Glenomaru, he spent two weeks around the Nuggets collecting rocks and looking for a relationship to other areas. Southeast Otago was an inspired choice for a region which Hector surmised to be part of a Southland syncline.
On the West Coast, the climate, damp clothes and gear, sandflies and mosquitoes made life difficult. Other trips included North Otago, Vincent and Lake counties, the Routeburn and Hollyford, Waitaki to the Matukituki, the Rakaia River and Kaikoura regions.
As a result of the Crown's interest in potential mineral deposits, an expedition was mounted to Fiordland in 1896. His party tramped and climbed through rugged bushclad country, where his assistants blazed a trail while McKay lay ill in a flooded tent. Finally, the entrance to the Morning Star mine was examined.
McKay was also a pioneer in the use of the telephoto lens (1886) when he took a photograph of the Russian warship Vjestnik, the first use of this technique in New Zealand. This aspect of his talents is largely unknown.
In 1873, he became a fellow of the Royal Geological Society of London. On the domestic side, his wife Susannah (1835-1906) is described as a shadowy figure, of whom no photographs or details exist.
For that matter, not a great deal is known of McKay's personality, which, largely of a Scottish nature, is mainly legendary, the author showing that his whisky input was exaggerated.
Graham Bishop says his biography is mainly for the general reader; the author has filled a considerable gap in our knowledge of a remarkable man who made an immense contribution to the geological history of New Zealand.
- Ron Tyrrell is a Dunedin historian.
