BURIED TREASURE

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 147, 18 March 1931, Page 16

BURIED TREASURE

Sea Shells and Moa Bones After twenty years’ control by the museum authorities, the Southland Education Board has decided to resume possession of the storeroom wherein is stored a large quantity of "buried treasure,” now awaiting classification and provision of adequate space before being exhibited (says the "Southland Times’’). Included in the “treasure’’ are valuable collections of seashells and moa’bones. The bulk of the-bones came from the Limehills district in which there was a cave which was virtually a moa graveyard. These bones await the coming of a research student on the moa. It may not be known that the world is still waitng for a competent person to deal with the tremendous amount of moa material now stored in New Zealand museums. Quantites of Maori and other objects of anthropological interest are also stored in cases awaiting the day when the public will provide room in which to display them. Dozens of birds, native and otherwise, are packed away until more space is available. Two very fine cabinets of insects, tne bulk unnamed, are housed in the storeroom pending a worthier home being found for them.