Chapman. — Oii the Worhing of Greenstone. 495 



Mr. H. O. Forbes at Monck's Cave, Banks Pensinsula, point 

 in this direction. Tiie cave was at some remote period closed 

 by a landslip, and for many years the colonists have carted 

 away the slipped material for road-making. In this way the 

 existence of the cave was discovered quite recently. The 

 cave was found to be in the condition in which its Maori 

 inhabitants had temporarily left it when the slip occurred. 

 On the floor were found beautifully-made implements of 

 greenstone. Scattered about were numerous largish fragments 

 of moa-bone, and fish-hooks and barbed spear-tips of the same 

 material. On the surface were bones of swans, a bird extinct 

 beyond the memory of man in New Zealand. " Just below 

 the surface of an untouched part of the midden," says 

 Mr. Forbes (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxih., p. 374), "I myself 

 picked out pieces of moa-egg shells, each with its internal 

 epidermis perfectly preserved." 



Whatever other evidence there may be, there is nothing in 

 this absolutely to refute the idea that these objects may have 

 lain for generations — perhaps for centuries — in a dry cave to 

 which the air had so little access that its dryness was always 

 preserved, as even in the destructive climate of Funk Island 

 the eggshell of the great auk is sometimes found when taken 

 from the ground to have the epidermis still adhering to it. It 

 can only be offered as suggesting that the owners of these 

 implements knew the moa and its eggs. Mr. Forbes has 

 kindly given me the opportunity of inspecting the eggshell in 

 his possession. The pieces are small, and if preserved in 

 undisturbed dry ground may be very old. The greenstone 

 objects in the Christchurch Museum taken from this cave are 

 undistinguishable from those constantly found iu Maori 

 camps. 



The character of the objects found in the cave shows that 

 the inhabitants were probably North Island Maoris ; and von 

 Haast long ago found that the articles in the neighbouring 

 Sumner Cave, left there by a people contemporaneous with the 

 moa, pointed in the same direction, being made of wood grow- 

 ing exclusively in the North Island. 



If this be so they were probably visitors from Cook Strait. 

 As von Haast did not find greenstone among the objects re- 

 ferred to, it is on the whole more probable that that found in 

 Monck's Cave belonged to a people of later date, who in using 

 the cave had not greatly disturbed the relics of its former 

 denizens. The evidence derived from the state of the egg- 

 shells must therefore be regarded as inconclusive. 



In a somewhat extensive examination of the great beds of 

 moa-bones at Shag Point, which Mr. A. Hamilton and I made 

 in January, 1891, he found one piece of greenstone. It is Gin. 

 in length by l^in. in width and fin. thick, and is of a tolerably 



