396 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



boat, and no means of returning should any accident befall 

 their balloon by the way. And even should fortune's wind 

 waft them to the pole they dare not allow their craft to fall. 

 Well might the circular that has been issued to the Russian 

 people on behalf of the expedition urge those who might see 

 the balloon " not to be frightened by the globe, but to help 

 the men in every way." Whether they succeed or fail, all 

 must hope that they survive to tell of their experiences in a 

 lifeless world of ice and cold — a world that once was as active 

 as our own, and which offers a type of what the temperate 

 and torrid zones will be in the ages that are to come. 



[Note. — Since this paper was written the news has come 

 to hand that x\ndree's project had probably ended in failure, 

 and that Nansen had returned, after reaching beyond the 85th 

 parallel of north latitude.] 



Abt. XLVII. — Are they Old Kumara-pits ? 

 By Taylor White. 



[Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute.'] 



On Mr. Graham Speedy's property, near Herbertville, 

 Hawke's Bay, are seven right-angled pits, some 18 in. or 2 ft. 

 in depth. They are on a small, narrow piece of land mostly 

 surrounded by a sloping incline 16 ft. in height. At first I 

 hoped they would prove to be the remains of ancient sunken 

 or pit dwellings, such as those found near Pelorus Sound, 

 and said by some persons to have been occupied by a pre- 

 Maori people ; but from the narrow width of my seven pits 

 they must be other than original sites for dwellings. There- 

 fore I conclude that these pits are where the esculent kumara 

 has at one time been stored. The longest pit is 22 ft. in 

 length by 8ft. aci'oss; another is 14ft. bv 6ft., and others 

 are 6 ft. by 10 ft., 10 ft. by 5 ft., 18 ft. by 7 ft., 13 ft. by 6 ft. 

 The excavations are still fairly square in the angles, and have 

 perpendicular sides. The width of those only 6 ft. across 

 would prevent a man from sleeping across the space in Maori 

 fashion ; so we may conclude that here was an old-time 

 storage-place of the Maori crops. I i-emember, many years 

 ago, seeing a row of such pits, near the road-side, between 

 Moteo and Omaha, in a sand-ridge running parallel with the 

 river. But about or near these pits were scattered shells, the 

 remnants of Maori feasting ; and I have no certain remem- 



