After Many Years.

Otago Witness, Issue 2205, 4 June 1896, Page 52

After Many Years.

" I have seen many-most carious finds which have been made in blocks of timber whioh we' have been cutting or splitting up here," said the manager to a timber merohaut in a very large way of business. " I have seen two skeletons of animate brought out of logs of wood, tluse being the skelttuns of a cutund a s tost respectively, and in each case the wood completely surrouuded the hollow in which the skeleton? were. The explanation, no doubt, is that in es,ch case the auirn*l bad got into a hole from which it could not extrioto itself, and that the wood grew over and wholly enclosed tho skeleton. In another ca«e, wh«-re the timber emae from Glsstonbury, wo found ia a hollow, completely closed up and surrounded inches dVep by the overgrowing wood, several love letters in a leather pouch, a lock of hair, and various trinkets. The tatters bore date 1804, and they were found in 1892. "But a more remarkable cane of tbis kind wes told to mi by my tmoloyer aud others here, the tbing happening bs'ore I came. That old workman over there was ont f hvg up an old log of oak when ho came across nine spade guineas and part of a broken gold chain. These things were in an artificially-made hollow. To conceal the hole a woodtm plug had been driven in after the things were hidden, bub the substance of the tree had grown even over the ouUr end of the plug to the extent of nearly two inches. " The most extraordinary article of this kind known is exhibited in tho office of a great veneercutting place in the Bast End. The catters there found, deep in a beech log, the perfect remains of a titmouse, still in its nest, the latter being perfect. Ancient arrow head*, a perfect piece of honeycomb, bullets of old-fasbioted pattern, onrious carvings over which iuches of fibre bave gi o "a, aud two old flintlock gans— found in holio»v« — are all things I have known t j be cat out of logs."