928 Transactions. —M iscellaneous. 
of making such deposits, a funeral feast in honour of the dead may have 
been consumed: and that, as the cooking stones used on previous occasions 
would have been covered up, fresh ones were brought each time, and thus 
the present appearance of a very large number of people having visited the 
place would result from the successive visits of even a small hapu. The 
number of the supposed camps in so short a distance along the cliff might 
arise from each hapu having its own depositary. The surrounding of each 
deposit with a ring of stones might be a ceremonial observance intended to 
protect the articles till securely covered by the sand. Indeed, the only 
. thing for which this supposition would apparently not account is the 
presence of the petrified wood. This, however, is just the sort of substance 
to attract the special notice of savages, and might perhaps be regarded as 
having a magical or supernatural origin or power; and though I have 
never heard of its being used by Natives in any way, or of its having been 
noticed as a product of any part of the Colony, yet I am satisfied that it 
was regarded as valuable in some respect, not only from the number of 
pieces of it in the deposits we visited, but from my having seen pieces, 
some years ago, which had been found in company with stone articles at 
Turakina. As regards the date at which, and the persons by whom the 
deposits were made, it is not easy to arrive at any definite conclusion. The 
sand-hills under which they have been buried, and which have again left 
them exposed after passing, are not more than from 30 to 40 chains long, 
which, at their present rate of progress, would give only from 800 to 400 
years as the time that had elapsed since the deposits were made, and would 
make it appear that the Maoris were the depositors. On the other hand, 
the articles are of a ruder type (of course the unfinished state of many of 
them may to some extent account for this,) than any Maori tools or 
weapons I have ever seen; and some of the smaller stone flakes have the 
appearance of Having been intended for arrow points rather than knives. 
This might, of course, be accidental ; and, moreover, I never heard that 
the Australian blacks, to whom the New Zealand Negrettos were probably 
allied, used arrows ; and had the latter done so, the bow would doubtless 
have remained in use asa Maori weapon. The petrified wood may perhaps 
throw light on this question, as I know it is found in Australia; and if the 
blacks there value it, and the Maoris do not, its presence in the caches would 
tend greatly to connect them with the Negretto race. 
I thought it well to make the above remarks as to the probable 
origin and date of the deposits, both with a view to assisting the 
members in diseussing these questions, and enabling them to judge which 
theory accorded best with the circumstances and surroundings of any 
similar deposits known to them ; and in order that any persons, who may 
