ROOM II. OSSIFEROUS DEPOSITS OF NEW ZEALAND. 101 



in like manner as the groups of Irish Elks occasionally found 

 in England, and the mammoths and mastodons in the bone- 

 licks or ancient swamps of America, 



OSSIFEROUS DEPOSIT IN THE NORTH ISLAND. The bones 

 collected by my son from the North Island (deposited in the 

 Table-cases, 15, 16, 17,) present a very different appearance 

 from those of Waikouaiti above described. Instead of being 

 heavy and of a dark colour, and permeated by silt and iron, 

 they are light and porous, and of a delicate fawn-colour ; the 

 most fragile processes are entire, and the articulating surfaces 

 of the joints smooth and uninjured ; even portions of egg- 

 shells, and mandibles, and the bony rings of the tracheae or 

 air-tubes, are preserved. 



In their general aspect these bones resemble those of the 

 carnivora from the ossiferous caverns of Germany. Their 

 state of preservation is evidently due to the material in which 

 they were imbedded, which is a loose volcanic sand (termed 

 menaccanite) containing titaniferous iron, crystals of horn- 

 blende and augite, &c, the detritus of volcanic rocks and 

 earthy tuff. The sand has filled all the cavities and cancelli 

 that have external openings, but is in no instance consoli- 

 dated or aggregated together; it is easily removed by a 

 soft brush. The following extract from my son's letter, dated 

 Wellington, June, 1847, details the circumstances under 

 which this most interesting collection was formed : 



" On the western shore of the North Island, about sixty 

 miles south-west of New Plymouth, there is a stream called 

 Waingongoro, which empties itself into the sea at about 

 a mile and a half south of Waimate in the Ngtirtianui dis- 

 trict. Part of the neighbouring country is elevated table- 

 land, with deep tortuous gullies, through which the torrents 

 and streams take their course to the sea. That of Waingon- 

 goro, which is as tortuous as any of them, takes its rise in 

 the neighbouring volcanic ridge, and has evidently at a 

 former period discharged itself far distant from its present 

 embouchure, as is proved by the existence of a line of cliffs 

 which extends inland, and has manifestly been produced by 

 the corroding action of the river. Driven from its course, 

 probably, by a change in the relative level of the land and 

 sea, the stream has formed its present channel, which cuts 

 through a bed of loose conglomerate, 100 feet thick, over- 



