66 Transactivns. — Miscellaneous. 



of their absences in the winter the landslip occurred which, as 

 far as they were concerned, for ever buried their habitation. 

 Whatever explanation be accepted to account for the desertion 

 of the cave and its contents, this remains certain : that when 

 it was opened by the road-makers a few weeks since it was 

 practically, except as to the decay of some perishable articles, 

 and the amount of debris fallen from the roof here and there, 

 in the same condition in which it had been hundreds of years 

 ago. This consideration makes it the more regrettable that 

 any digging whatever took place before some scientific man 

 with special ability for such excavations too'k direction of the 

 proceedings. Nevertheless it must be stated that Mr. Monck, 

 in so far as he himself has carried on the work up to the 

 present, has done his best to preserve everything of value ; 

 but he, naturally enough, did not preserve a record of the 

 exact spot, or depth, or layer from which each article had been 

 obtained, so that the several questions of relative time at 

 which various deposits were made can with difficulty now be 

 answered. 



The discovery of the cave was made quite accidentally. 

 Metal and gravel being constantly needed for the Sumner 

 Eoad, Mr. Monck has for a long time allowed the stuff to be 

 taken from one of his paddocks, as it lay in a heap, apparently 

 having fallen down from the cliffs above. A mass of stuff", 

 40 yards through, w^as thus removed, and while clearing this 

 away the opening of the cave was laid bare. The first person 

 to enter was the son of the proprietor, and he when he got 

 some distance in saw two bright eyes glaring at him from the 

 darkness. Immediately after a cat was seen to emerge from 

 the cave. It had entered, most likely, only the night before, 

 through some crevice which the workmen had laid open but 

 not observed, or possibly through some other opening from 

 the surface of the hill into a remote part of the cave not yet 

 explored. The latter supposition seems justified by the find- 

 ing of a number of rabbit-bones upon the floor. 



The geological aspect of the cave seems to be precisely 

 similar to that of the one at Moa Point. It is a hollow in the 

 doleritic lava formed by the washing-away of loose material 

 between the harder rocks. There are probably many more 

 such caves between Christchurch and Sumner, and in other 

 parts of Banks Peninsula. We are told that the peninsula 

 was once an island — that it was first uplifted by Titanic force 

 from the depths below, that it was subsequently depressed 

 about 20ft., and then raised again to about its present level. 

 When the huge volcanic mass was depressed, the low-lying 

 lands between Sumner and New Brighton were entirely under 

 water. The Pacific breakers dashed against cliffs which are 

 now miles from the sea, and everything in the shape of tufa 



