I 



Booth. — Description of the Moa Swamp at Hamilton. 123 



Art. X. — Description of the Moa Swamp at Hamilton. By B. S. Booth. 



Communicated by Captain Hutton. 



Plate V. 

 [Read before the Otago Institute, 12th October, 1874.] 



Some four years ago, one of tlie company called the Cornish Gold Mining 

 Company, when cutting peat, uncovered a few bones, and thinking it rather 

 strange that so many should be together, he came to me and related his 

 discovery. 



I immediately went to the place and sunk a hole 4. feet square, out of 

 which I took 56 leg bones, and others in proportion, and then had not 

 bottomed it in consequence of water. I at once saw the importance of the 

 discovery. 



Knowing that it was on the Cornishmen's claim I said nothing about it, 

 thinking that they might move their pegs, and that I would then see what 

 could be done. I believe this was long before Dr. Haast's discovery of a 

 similar nature in Canterbury. In December, 1873, 1 found that the company, 

 in pegging off a new claim, had left the pit outside their boundary. 



I then called the attention of the editor of the Mount Ida Chronicle to the 

 deposit. He inserted a note in his paper j the daily Times copied it ; Captain 

 Hutton's eye met it ; and on the 15th of January, 1874, he was on the 

 ground, when he made arrangements with me to commence res'earches. 



I found it to be a dry lagoon of a slightly oblong shape, 45 by 50 feet, 

 situated on the lower edge of a flat piece of ground. 



For some 200 yards on the sides and upper end the ground was quite 

 leveL 



The lower alluvial stratum of the flat, as well as of the spurs surrounding 

 it, is, for a depth of from 10 to 30 feet, composed chiefly of water-worn quartz 

 pebbles. The lagoon is from 1 to 5 feet deep, gradually sloping in from the 

 rim of the basin to a point in the north-east quarter, which was near the centre 

 of the bone deposit, and which appeared to have been a spring up to the time 

 that the water had been drawn off by cuttings in the Cornishmen's claim. 

 Notwithstanding this cutting, within 30 yards of my hole, and 20 feet deep, 

 the water rose 1 foot when tapped, and stands there still. The basin lies in a 

 bed of bluish sandy micaceous clay, which clay is from 2 to 8 feet deep, and 

 rests on the gravel spoken of above, which, according to the face in the claim, 

 must run 20 or 25 feet deeper. The surface of the lagoon, before being 

 disturbed, was rather higher than the surrounding surface, and consisted of 

 from 1 to 2 feet of black peat mixed with a blackish silt which rested on and 

 was mixed with the bones to the very bottom. 



