FOSSILISED REMAINS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 17 October 1923, Page 6

FOSSILISED REMAINS.

' ♦ — ~-~ OF PREHISTORIC MONSTER, DISCOVERY OF YEARS AGO. IN MOAWHANGO DISTRICT. The story of the finding of the fossilised remains of a pre-historic monster in the> wilds of the Moawhanga district has again been revived. The remains were supposed to have been discovered by the late Mr. P. Bedlington, a well-known surveyor in the early days. There is also a Maori legend i that a monster once roamed over the Waiouru Plains and the Kaimanawa1 Ranges. Now comes a more modern version, and the story is an interesting one. In 1882 Mr. Bedlington was. cutting up the Awarura Block, and embedded in sandstone formation in the bed of the ■Waiteweta stream—a tributary of the Ngaruroro river, which flows across, to Hawke's Bay—he discovered the fossilised remains of a monster sixty feet in length, and camp stools were cut from the vertebrae. This interesting fact was mentioned by Mr. S. A. Mair, the well-known engineer of Rangitikei County Council, to a Wanganui Herald reporter on Friday. Mr. Mair said that Mr. Bedjhngton's veracity was beyond question, and personally he believed that the remains were still there waiting to be re-discovered. "Some years ago I explored the river with the Messi* Batley, of Moawahango," said Mr Mair, "but it was very difficult country, and the river bed' was full of detritus from the mountains, but I am now arranging for another expedition to thoroughly explore the river.''