Digging Up the Past.

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 249, 17 July 1937, Page 9 (Supplement)

Digging Up the Past.

IMPORTANT archaeological discoveries have been made at Jarlshof, in the Shetlands, an island that is believed to have been a Scandinavian settlement before the Bronze Age. Many interesting objects have been unearthed, including some peculiarlyshaped weights, a long, narrow stone with a tree rune carved on it. a large knife-blade of iron, a pot eleek of bronze, fragments of crude vessels made of hard pottery, and small bronze sheets of scale formation. Articles older than the Bronze Age were found under a deep bed of sand. These excavations have been carried out by the Ancient Monuments Commission. And in Mousa Island also investigations have been made by Dr. Jan Petersen, director of the museum at Stavanger, Norway. Mousa is regarded as one of the best preserved Teutonic fastnesses in Europe. It has a circular site, about 50 feet in diameter, and is built of middle-sized schistose stones firmly cemented together. Dr. Petersen thinks that the discoveries at Jarlshof point to a settlement resembling Viking dwellings in Norway. Storks at Kew. ’THE storks in the Royal Botanic GarX dens-at Kew are always a source <>t interest to visitors, but particularly at nesting time. “There have been storks in the Gardens since 1800. and possibly earlier,” said Sir Arthur Mill, the director, “but it was not until 1902 that a pair of young birds was successfully roared. During the years 1903 to 1915 one or two young birds wore reared almost every year, and in 1909 four were hatched. .Some were given away to other institutions. One year the young birds were not pinioned, in the hope that they might come back to Kew after their migration, but unfortunately they never returned. Since 1916 the storks have laid eggs once or twice, but, owing to being disturbed by visi tors, no birds were hatched. “Our original batch of storks —at on? time (1910-1914) we had as many as seven in the gardens—died out, and the present pair was acquired a few years ago. So far, however, they have not made a serious attempt to breed.”