Hamilton. — The Moeraki Boulders. 4i9 



side, and has in its hollow a most charming natural aquarium, 

 the sides and bottom of which are thickly lined with Sabellids, 

 sponges, and beautiful sea- anemones (see Plate XXX1L). 

 Mr. Mantell, with the feelings of a weary, footsore, pedes- 

 trian explorer, exclaims, " "What an excellent footbath ! " — a 

 suggestion practical if not poetical. There is one very large 

 specimen still imbedded in the clay cliffs about 50 ft. above 

 tide-mark, but I could not see any of the smaller sizes. The 

 majority of those between tide-marks are encircled with a 

 thick coating of the small blue-black Mytihis, and the bare 

 portion is partly covered with a vivid-green Alga, which 

 contrasts with the mussels. Those above tide -limits are 

 weathered to a greyish-brown, and in some cases the hard 

 calcite filling the septae, or cracks, stands out in relief, being 

 less easily acted upon by the weather. Four or five large 

 specimens have fallen to pieces and show the interior to be a 

 hard blue clay or limestone, and numerous exterior layers, 

 which show more and more the cone-in-cone structure as 

 they approach the surface. 



The Maori has localised the tradition of the loss of the 

 celebrated canoe " Arai-te-Uru " in the neighbourhood by 

 pointing out the long reef just south of Port Moeraki as the 

 canoe, and the cargo may still be seen strewn on the beaches, 

 a huge elongated concretion being the hinaki, or eel- basket, of 

 Hape-ki-taurake and the slave Puketapu." The globular sep- 

 tarian boulders are the calabashes which held the supply of 

 water for those in the canoe, and a number of strangely 

 shaped ferruginous concretions which occur to the south of 

 the headland at Katiki are the kumaras washed ashore from 

 the wreck. Mr. Mantell speaks of these " kumaras " as " no- 

 dules containing a far larger amount of iron and less lime 

 than those before mentioned. The spot is known to the 

 whalers as ' Vulcan's Foundry.' " 



These Katiki Beach boulders are also much in request 

 for garden ornamentation. The natural red-brown colour is 

 often improved(? / ) by a coat of white paint or white-wash. 



Mr. bhortland visited this part of the coast in the early 

 days and notices the story of the canoe and the kumaras, but 

 does not seem to have seen the larger groups of septaiia to 

 the north.f 



From the geological or stratigraphical point of view the 

 boulders have been frequently referred to in the Eeports of the 

 Geological Survey. In 1862 Sir James Hector indicated the 

 position of the Moeraki septaria beds in a paper on the 



* Cation Stack: "Traditional History cf the Southern Maoris" 

 (Trans. N.Z. Inst., x., 61). 



f ShortlaDd : " Southern Districts cf New Zealand," p. 190. 

 29 



