194 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



University of Otago, School of Mines, 14th August, 1902. 

 Rock for Determination. 

 Dr. Marshall has examined this rock microscopically, and finds it is an 

 augite andesite of the ordinary type, compact and splintery in fracture. 

 It consists of an aggregate of plagioclase augite and a little hornblende 

 set in a fine-grained groundmass of feldspar microlites. Augite andesite is 

 a common rock in the Auckland Goldfields and in the ct-ntral volcanic 

 region of the North Island, while many kinds of andesite are found 

 around Dunedin. James Park, Director. 



It is acknowledged that the stones are of one particular 

 kind, and that the Mbenga (Bega) performers carry them 

 from island to island, and will not walk on any other kind. 

 That is a fact, and points away from the idea held by most 

 people that the mystery is in the " walkers" and not in the 

 " walked upon." I have no doubt that near some of the old 

 craters of Viti Levu, or the other islands of the group, the 

 same stone can be found in abundance. 



What struck me at once on handling the stone, or rather 

 trying to do so, was its extraordinary tenacity of heat, or, in 

 other words, the extremely slow throwing-off of its heat by 

 cooling or radiation. Even after frequent, and often con- 

 tinuous, dippings in cold sea-water, and water from a fresh 

 stream that ran out at that spot, the stone seemed little or no 

 cooler. That stones were carried for more than two hours 

 after these dippings and still remained uncomfortably warm 

 gives one a clue to the mystery. 



This stone takes two days to get to its proper condition, 

 for the natives keep the furnace going and refuse to walk 

 unless that time has elapsed ; and when the ceremony is over 

 it takes a corresponding time to cool, for yams, taro, &c, 

 wrapped in leaves take, they say, two days' cooking before 

 being in a fit state for eating. Now, Darwin describes the 

 Tahitian method of cooking as follows : " They made a small 

 fire of sticks and placed a score of stones of about the size 

 of cricket-balls on the burning wood. In about ten minutes 

 the sticks were consumed and the stones hot. They had 

 previously folded up in small parcels of leaves pieces of beef, 

 fish, ripe and unripe bananas, and the tops of the wild arum. 

 These green parcels were laid in a layer between two layers 

 of the hot stones, and the whole then covered up with earth 

 so that no smoke or steam could escape. In about a quarter ^ 

 of an hour the whole was most deliciously cooked "(Z). The 

 articles of food which we saw placed in the lovo after the 

 " fire-walk " were almost precisely the same as those here 

 mentioned, yet owing to the slow giving-off of heat from 

 this particular stone the cooking was greatly prolonged. 



That vegetables which can be cooked in an ordinary 

 house-oven in three or four hours should remain in the 

 lovo for forty-eight and not be burnt to cinders or steamed 



