Correspondence — J. Allan Thomson. 335 



day, reducing its shelly contents to their present condition, and anything buried 

 in it then would be similarly changed with the other contents. 



A palteolithic man graved the shell (note the breadth of the nose in connection 

 with Professor Sollas' suggestion as to the affinities of cave man — a later man 

 would not have made it so broad) ; it was buried with the owner in a grave dug 

 down into the Crag, all traces of which interment with the perishable human 

 remains would become obliterated in the subsequent ages, or if any were left 

 would be overlooked by the finder, who was not, I believe, a skilled geologist, 

 and who certainly was not expecting the prize that came in his way. 



B. B. Woodward. 



PS. Since writing the above I have re-examined the shell with Mr. A. S. 

 Kennard and others. Mr. Kennard pointed out that the hinge-teeth in one 

 place held a small fragment of matrix unlike that of the Bed Crag adhering to 

 other parts of the shell, and strongly resembling humus. This little piece of 

 evidence, if correct, will further support the interment theory. Mr. Kennard 

 further considers that the staining in the cuts, especially the mouth, are unlike 

 Ked Crag staining, though not modern. It had previously occurred to me that 

 it looked as if red ochre, as known to the ancient hunters, had been rubbed into 

 the cut. 



Another friend has favoured me with an attempt to reproduce the carving 

 from memory on a Glycimeris shell from the Ked Crag of the locality, but his 

 efforts have only served to emphasize the impossibility of reproducing with 

 modern tools and modern conception of the human face, even in caricature, the 

 quaint but characteristic sculpture on the shell in question. 



ON A DISCOVEEY OF FOSSILS IN THE WEKA PASS STONE, 

 NEW ZEALAND.' 



Sir, — While not wishing- to defend in toio the position taken up 

 by Professor Marshall and Messrs. Speight and Cotton on the Younger 

 Kock Series of ISTew Zealand, which has recently been assailed by 

 Professor Park in this Magazine (December, 1911), I should like to 

 announce a discovery of fossils in the Weka Pass Stone which has 

 considerable historical interest. Professor Park in 1905 (Trans. N.Z. 

 Inst., sxxvii, pp. 545-6) and in the paper mentioned stated that 

 he was unable to find recognizable fossils in this rock, and came to 

 the conclusion that the fossils previously reported by Haast and 

 Hutton were probably derived from fallen blocks of the overlying 

 Mount Brown Beds. Professor Park had not had access to the 

 Geological Survey collections, in which there are undoubtedly Tertiary 

 fossils from this rock, and may be pardoned for not recognizing as 

 from the Weka Pass Stone certain fossils in the Canterbury Museum 

 which are labelled simply ' Weka Pass' or 'Waipara'. He is 

 certainly right in maintaining that fossils are not abundant in the 

 Weka Pass Stone, as stated by Haast, for it is possible to search for 

 hours without success. In a recent visit to the Waipara district, 

 however, Mr. Cotton and myself had the good fortune to stumble 

 across several specimens of Pecten ( Cmnptonectes) htiUoni (Park), and 

 a single specimen of a Cirsotrema allied to C. lyrata (Zittel), two of 

 the most charaofteristic fossils of the Oamaru Series (Lower Tertiary). 

 This discovery proves that Hector, Hutton, and Haast were right in 

 ascribing a Tertiary age to the Weka Pass Stone, and throws back 

 the position to where it was on Hutton's death, viz. that if the Weka 



' By permission of the Director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand. 



