Canterbury and Westland : 415 



before the sea had left the cave entirely, by being shut out by the 

 boulder bank in front of the entrance, the crown of which rises 16 feet 

 above high-water mark. However, both the boulder bank and this 

 rock at the entrance of the cave, prevented the drift sands from entering 

 and filling it, so that when the Moa-hunters landed with their canoes in 

 some of the nooks of the rocky shore in the vicinity, they found a capital 

 shelter in the cave, whilst the Peninsula, then probably an island, and 

 the opposite shores of the main land offered them a fine hunting ground. 

 It appears from the examination of the sea sands, that the first visitors 

 of the cave entered it only occasionally, and still more rarely used it 

 as a cooking place. . This might have taken place after the waves of 

 the sea had been shut out from the cave by the formation of the boulder 

 bank in front of it, probably assisted by a rise of the land, but it is 

 possible that at exceptionally high tides the water still entered the 

 cave, as some of the broken Moa-bones, and of the boulders of which 

 the cooking ovens in the south-western portion were formed, were 

 imbedded nearly twelve inches deep in the sands. The bed of ashes 

 and dirt which here, and in a few other places, underlies the next or 

 agglomeratic bed, clearly proves that before the last-mentioned deposit 

 was formed, fires had been lighted occasionally upon the sands. The 

 discovery of drift wood in the cave, often of considerable size, of several 

 seal skeletons, and of a portion of a lower human jaw, is a proof that 

 during the deposition of the sands it was easily accessible to the waves 

 of the sea. 



In these marine sands blocks of rock of all sizes are imbedded, 

 having fallen from the roof, and possessing a more or less rounded 

 shape, such as is exhibited by scoriae, formed during the flow of a 

 large lava-stream in its upper and lower portions. When the waves of 

 the sea finally retreated, a great number of these fragments fell 

 for a considerable time from the roof, forming a nearly uniform layer 

 of an average thickness of six inches above the marine sands, and bein<r 

 generally thicker where the cave is highest. This fall was, without 

 doubt, caused by the interior of the cave gradually getting drier. 

 During the whole time of the formation of this remarkable deposit, 

 the cave appears to have been occasionally inhabited, as evinced by the 

 great number of bones and of small quantities of charcoal and ashes 

 enclosed in the bed under consideration. Above this agglomerated 

 bed another remarkable layer has been deposited, generally three to 

 four inches in thickness, mostly consisting of refuse matter from human 

 occupation and of ashes, so that I adopted the name of dirt-bed for 



