FOSSILISED SHELLS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19880, 6 March 1939, Page 14

FOSSILISED SHELLS

DISCOVERY BY TRAMPERS ALTITUDE OF 2000 FT. At an altitude of 2000 ft. in the Ruahine Ranges, two young Wellington trampers, Messrs. B. Grieg and F. G. Fitzgerald, recently discovered an outcrop of rock thickly studded with fossilised shells. It is in a narrow gorge through which runs a small stream thought to be the headwaters of the Waipawa River. The trampers walked from Whakarara beyond Takapau, past McCulloch's timber mill on the Waipawa River, at the edge of the timberlanci, and followed the stream beyond the timber line till they reached 2000 ft. It was ion their return journey that they noticed the glistening of shells in a ledge of rock over which (lie stream was running. They broke off several samples and carried them back to Wellington.

Asked for comment on the find. Dr. P. Marshall, Wellington, Government petrologist, said that the rocks were probably what was known as shell limestone. They would be tertiary recks, and similar fossilised shells had been found in other parts of New Zealand, some at an altitude higher than 2000 ft., though that was higher than usual. Finds of shell limestone, which were not uncommon, were nevertheless interesting as they showed that at some period what was now known as New Zealand had been under the sea.

It was in this country that Mr. Hamish Armstrong, a young Hawke's Bay aviator, crashed on July 21 1935, on a flight in his Moth aeroplane from his home in Akitio to Hastings. The country was bush-clad, rough and covered with snow, and for a fortnight parties searched vainly for the missingman.