FOSSILISED BONES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12881, 13 May 1913, Page 6

FOSSILISED BONES.

THE WAVERLEY DISCOVERY

A PREHISTORIC MAMMAL. .

(From our Travelling Reporter.)

WAVERLEY ,May 12. About a week iago it was reported that several -Waverley residents had made ia discovery of fossilised bones afc WaverJey beach, and that Mr J. Hamiltotn, Director of the Dominion Museum, had been communicated with on the matter. Mr C. A. Mockay has now received tho following interesting reply: .

" 1 liave I'eceived four pieces of fossil bones, and they appear to me to be undoubtedly ia port of tho boiio of a. fossil cetacoan. The only thing against this would be that 'it lies under about 30 feet of papa.' If you mean by this the blue clay which as called papa on tlio east coast, it is rsather/^ curious, but if it is only the sandy, clays and sands of the Patoa ooast it is not so curious. -

".Somo of the bon<fs are of..course a great size; the vertebrae are very large. In a, similar situation near Duaaedin there ivias exposed many years ago a iarge series of vertebrae of the same class. "

" Very littlo" work has been done in identifying theso cetaceans. Perhaps the best cetacean skeleton yet found \va s obtained by Mr McKay, geologist to the old survey, at. Wharekuri in the Waitaki Valley. It was very large, and belonged to the toothed "variety called Kekemodon.

"Reptilian bones ar-«i sometimes found in the older formations as large as these, but very fragmentary, principally in the South Island—the texture however is quite different."; It 'is probable that .n further effort will bo made to recover the balance of the skeleton at an early date. V