FOSSILISED BONES.

Mataura Ensign, 14 May 1913, Page 5

FOSSILISED BONES.

* INTERESTING REPORT. PKB UNITED PRESS ABBOCItTXO*. WANGANUI, May 13. A couple of weeks ago several fossilised bones were discovered on the side of the cliff at Waverley Beach and forwarded to Mr J. Hamilton, director of the Dominion Museum. Wellington, asking hihi for his opinion. He haa now, forwarded the following interesting re-| p!y "I have received your pieces of foesil bones, and they appear to me to be undoubtedly part of the bone of a fossil cetacean. The only thing against this would be that it lies under about 80ft of papa. If you mean by this the blue clay which is called papa on the East Coast it is rather curious, but if it is only the sandy yellowish clays and sands of the Patea coast it is not so curious. Some of the bones are, of course, of great size. The vertebrae are very large. In a similar situation near Dunedin there was exposed many years ago a large scries of vertebrae of the same class. Very little work has been done in identifying these cetaceans. Perhaps the best cetacean skelton yet found was obtained by Mr McKay, geologist to tho old survey at "Wharekuri in tho Waitaki Valley. It was very large, and belonged to the, toothed variety called Kekenodon. Reptilean bones are sometimes found in the older formations as large as these, but very fragmentary, principally in the South Island. The texturo, however, is quite different." It is probable that a further effort will he made to recover the balance of the skeleton at an early date.