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Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 5 February 1927, Page 4

The large marked stone known as “Burt’s Stone,” which for so long has lain on the roadside about three ’ miles on the western side of Matata, and which, presumably, was used by Maoris or some - race of the Stone Age as a sharpening stone for their instruments, is at present being packed to bei sent to the Auckland Museum (writes a Tauranga correspondent to au exchange)’. The top of the stone has bene hewn off, and the markings are generally intact, except for some chipping that has been done in the past by - souvenir hunters. In a paper which he k read before the Otago Institute in 1920. Dr. F. Fulton, of Dunedin, said the stone was of hard, volcanic-looking rock, or possiW- a meteorite. As far as he could judge there was uo sign of any siuirar stone in the neighbourhood. ■ He was informed that the Maoris asserted that thev knew nothing about it. and that the grooves in the surface were the work of pre-Maori days. He was an American, and he spoke English with a marked but pleasant American accent. He gestured with his hands, and when he ably defended himself in the lower court on a charge of crossing a. railway line in a motor car when a train was approaching lie leaned against the dock and said: “Your Honour, I was over those rails and 50 yards beyond before that train swept over my tracks! I Tvas only going at 20 to 25 an hour. I was with my wife, and believe me _we didn’t even get a kick out of it!” The Justices of the Peace smiled. “But the engine-driver says he missed you bv inches,” thev reminded him. “Inches!” %e echoed. “Why, if it’d ohlv been inches I sure would have srot a thrill. But I didn’t even get that!” He was. however, fined 20s (says the Christchurch Press).