496 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



good quality of kaiuahaiva. It bore no distinct resemblance to 

 any familiar implement, being more like one of the rubbers or 

 polishers which we find in numbers there, having the two 

 opposite broader sides distinctly concave. 1 do not agree with 

 Mr. Hamilton in thinking that it has been used as a sharpen- 

 ing-stone for putting a final edge or polish on implements, as I 

 do not know of any stone in the polishing of which greenstone 

 would offer any advantage for such a purpose over common 

 sandstone. I find, moreover, on submitting it to inspection 

 by means of a hand-glass that it has been shaped by grinding 

 by means of a coarse Iioanga or sandstone ; that the striai run 

 across ic at an angle of 45°, as is usual with unfinished green- 

 stone implements ; and that these traces of workmanship run 

 over every part of it evenly, which would not be the case had 

 it been used as a tool merely. It has been sharpened by 

 means of considerable labour, and is of great interest, as it 

 was found imbedded in the great bed of moa-bones broken by 

 human hands, in a zone where, amid masses of fractured 

 bones, implements of moa-bone and cut fragments were also 

 found. 



Though no greenstone has ever been reported from this 

 zone, the situation was such as to satisfy Mr. Hamilton and 

 myself that those who fed upon the moas — w^ho it is now 

 universally admitted used polished-stone implements, of which 

 we found a few fragments — also knew and worked greenstone, 

 though probably only as a very rare stone received through the 

 indirect channels already suggested. It is, of course, very 

 difficult to exclude every possibility of error, but we could 

 neither see nor conceive any, though we carefully directed 

 our attention to the subject at the time. The only source 

 of error we could imagine w^as that it was possibly buried 

 in a hole dug for the purpose ; but its situation rendered this 

 extremely improbable. Indeed, we found none of the indicia 

 of secondary displacement of the heap there or in any part. 

 The broken moa-bones were interlaced over the implement 

 in the same way as elsewhere. It was several feet under the 

 surface, and within a few inches of the sand-bed on which 

 the mass of bones lay, and in the near neighbourhood we 

 found many moa-skulls, attached to long strings of verte- 

 bra, lying in situ. 



In von Haast's case in the Christchurch Museum, devoted 

 exclusively to Shag Point, among a collection of schist drills, 

 implements of moa-bone. Sec, are three very small polished 

 greenstone chisels of kawakaica and a larger one of an 

 inferior stone. There is no label to explain from what zone 

 they were taken — and greenstone objects are often found on 

 the surface there — and the ordinary presumption would be 

 that he placed them in that case with objects which he 



