PREHISTORIC WHALE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 146, 23 June 1938, Page 5

PREHISTORIC WHALE

HUGE SKELETON IN CLIFF CANTERBURY DISCOVERY Embedded in the face of a cliff on a hillside high above the Waipara River in North Canterbury is the skeleton of a huge marine creature of prehistoric times,', states a correspondent. Its vertebrae and ribs, petrified and harder than the surrounding rock, can be traced for a distance of nearly 30 feet. These remains, discovered by Mr. F. W. Inwood, of Christchurch, during a shooting expedition, have aroused great interest, for fossil remains have previously been found in the Waipara region. Mr. Inwood and Mr. E. Lowe, who visited the region again last weekend, displayed samples of the bones they had been able to chip out of the sandstone. One was the top end of a limb, more than a foot high and eight inches thick. Others were cross sections of vertebrae, and fragments of ribs. These came from a great slab of stone that had tumbled on to the banks of the river. The stone contained a section of the skeleton of the creature, wRh its vertebrae showing in crosssection at one end, and pieces of the ribs jutting out at intervals. Dr. R. S. Allan, lecturer in geology at Canterbury University College, examined the petrified bones at the Canterbury Museum, in company with Mr. R. A. Falla, curator of the museum. From the place where they were found and the nature of the stone, said Dr. Allan, the remains were probably those of a prehistoric whale. Whether the whale was of a kind not previously recorded by geologists could not be determined without a further examination on the site, he added. It would be possible, if the rock had been carried by water from some other part of the area, for the bones to be those of a saurian—a form of giant swimming reptile—but this was less likely.