The Kauri in the S outh Island.
TO THE EDITOH. Sm,- 1 have read with much r>!e?=ure the article a. jotti; cvluaiiii. ttt "!• &L !•" fla th*
kauri and other trees. "While quite agreeing with the writer as to the great age these trees attain, I do not altogether agree with "I. M. I." that they have never grown in the Middle Island, as I have frequently found the remains of kauri in ancient river beds and in. beds or seams of biown coal, or lignite. A. short distance from here (Croydon) there ia an outcrop of lignite, or brown coal, in which) in.pressions of the leaves of the kauri and; other traes may be obtained quite easily, tha impressions being so clear and true that one would almost think he was looking at a leaf that had fallen only the other day. In tha Ifataura bed of lignite, which ia the largest in Southland, extending as it does from.' Mataura to Forest Hill, a distance of about 20 miles, with a width of from one to 10 miles— wherever this seam has been worked the remains of kauri timber have been found, also the leaves and huge masses of kauri gum many pounds in weight. Some few years ago Mr Alexander M'Kay, Government Geologist, examined this seam, and he informed me that; the fossils found in this bed were undoubtedly the remains of the kauri tree. In this opinion Sir James Hector concurred with him. Ors the Waimea Plains also there is a small seam in which gum and impressions of the leaf are to be found. There are small land-locked seams at Waikaia, Chatton, and Pukerau, in which the remains of the kauri, along with remains of other trees, such as matai, kamai, the leaf of the grass tree, and impressions of flax leaves and many other trees and! grasses, are to be found. From- what I hava" written it is clearly shown, that large forests of kauri must have existed at no veiy distant date on the rana:e3 overlooking Waikaia and on the Otakarama Hills, near Gore, and over tha whole of the Hokonuis. — I am, etc.,
BUSHMAIT.
Croydon Bush, July 14,
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19020723.2.15.3
Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 2523, 23 July 1902, Page 10
Word Count
364The Kauri in the South Island. Otago Witness, Issue 2523, 23 July 1902, Page 10
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