Hood. — On Changes in the Physical Geography of N.Z. 113 



leaving also a Great lake to mark its site. This old volcano of Arid Island, 

 with an area of some six miles in diameter, has subsided to the extent of at 



least 2,000 feet, Captain Hutton estimates, since the period when its lavas 

 flowed over that portion of the adjacent country now known as Barren 



Island. 



The events to which their traditions relate took place perhaps at a time 



when the stepping stones from New Zealand to the more ancient home of the 



Maori may not have been so far apart as they are to-day — as far back, it may 



be, as the time when the skeletons of men of this most ancient type, now from 



time to time exhumed from their graves, deep in the solid limestone rock, and 



covered with the ashes of long quiescent craters, lay bleaching on the coral 



strand of Oahu. 



As for Rangitoto, its name is an evidence that the natives have seen the 

 skies ruddy with its flames, reflected in the Waitcmata — "the glittering 

 waters," — as in their usual expressive, and often poetical phraseology they 

 have called the arm of the sea which surrounds it with such beauty. This 

 impression has received strong confirmation by a discovery, of which the 

 following notice is copied from the Auckland Southern Cross newspaper. The 

 correctness of the description of the locality is established by the careful 

 examination of the spot by Mr. Theophilus Heale, Inspector of Surveys, a 

 gentleman whose scientific acquirements are well known, who informed me 

 that there could be no doubt upon the matter, and that the conjecture that a 

 landslip had occurred there, was without foundation : 



"An exceedingly interesting relic of the very remote past is now to be 

 seen in the office of the Improvement Commissioners. It is the root of a tree 

 found in one of the cuttings being made under the direction of that Commis- 

 sion. The root has evidently been chopped through by a stone adze which 

 was found beside it. There were also several small branches and roots 

 of the same tree on which the edge of the stone adze had been tried, and the 

 whole crown of the stump had the marks of having been laboriously and 

 patiently cut through by the rude stone implement in the unknown past, and 

 by one of an equally unknown race of human beings. The root was found 

 when cutting the sewer up the middle of Coburg Street, near the lower end, a 

 little above its junction with the continuation of Wellesley Street, and at a 

 depth of about 25 feet below the original surface of the Barrack Hill at that 

 place. From the surface downwards for about 1 4 feet, at the place where the 

 root was found, the hill is composed of volcanic matter. Below that depth, for 

 about 8 or 9 feet, there is a series of layers of a mixture of sand and clay, 

 which appears to have been at one time deposited under water. Below that 



•ge bed 



These 



blue clay do not seem to have been at all disturbed by volcanic action, and 



<J 



