SOME OLD-TIME PAS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 79, 5 April 1910, Page 3

SOME OLD-TIME PAS.

INTERESTING VARIATIONS. When Mr. Hamilton, of the Dominion Museum, was in the far North recently he took some photographs of old-time Maori pas which, he states, display evidence of an enormous amount of work in the making of the defensive trenches, and excavation of sites for the houses on the sides oi huge volcanoes. In many cases the house sites are still marked by stones arranged in small squares for the hearths. The general scheme of the defensive works differs in some respects from the plans of the hills in the southern portion of the island. It would be matter of great interest.' says Mr. Hamilton, to have good detailed sections and plans of the form of the&e pas made before they are entirely ruined by cattle, which trample down and obliterate the excavationr. At Pakaraka there is the remnant of a pa which was built on the crater of a volcano. One side of the cone was broken out, leaving a deep crater filled with most luxuriant vegetation. At the bottom now there >s a small lake. The fortifications occupied nearly the whole of the top of the incomplete circle.