i8 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
nate the first of the above ideas. We had no opportunity (and 
I imagine very little power if opportunity had been given) of 
extracting a conclusion from Maori traditions. Besides, as the 
Maoris evidently confine themselves really to the statement that 
their own ancestors did zo¢ do the paintings, and envelope the 
true authors as far as they can in the thickest mythical mists, it 
is clear that their views, taken at the very best, are no more than 
negative, and useless for practical purposes. Any man can say, 
“T did wot do it,” or, “ My grandfather did zo¢ do it ;” but if he 
goes on to found a statement of facts upon a dream or a fairy 
tale, there is an end of him as a practical witness. 
Passing, for a time, over the next three theories, we come to 
the view held by many people, and actually asserted by some, 
that the paintings are of European workmanship. And I think 
I am correct in stating that our examination of the locality, of 
the rock itself, and the paintings, led us to the unanimous opinion 
that this view is totally incorrect. Whoever may have been the 
artists, they were, as we thought, undoubtedly not European 
shepherds, shearers or sheep drovers. In the first place, the 
locality is away from the road, and although, doubtless, twenty 
or thirty years ago the Weka Pass was not traversed by a good 
metalled high road, yet even then a drover, to take his sheep 
through the “ Basin,” would, as it seems, have deliberately left 
an evidently easy track to wander causelessly over high hills and 
steep gullies. Secondly, the paintings are in more places than 
one in the “ Basin ;” and it is to the last degree unlikely that a 
shepherd or a shearer should have amused himself by wandering 
about with a raddle pot, and a brush of lamp black to daub the 
rocks with unmeaning scrawls for pure mischief, especially con- 
fining himself to obscure over-hanging semi-caverns. Thirdly, 
the paintings (especially those in black pigment) are in immense 
numbers on the large shelter, as I said just now. So that our 
artistic shearer or drover must absolutely have spent, not only 
the hours of a single evening, or two evenings, in his eccentric 
work, but must have devoted himself to his task for days together. 
Fourthly, there does not seem to be the remotest resemblance in 
these paintings, black or red, to anything which the imagination of 
an uneducated European would have led him to daub on the rock, 
with one single exception, the queer object called a hat in Dr. von 
Haasts’ plate, Transactions, Vol. X. Puttingall these things together, 
and adding the evident “ weathered” appearance and crumbling 
surface of the rock, we came, I believe, to the unanimous opinion 
that the fifth theory which I have mentioned is clearly erroneous, 
and that the sixth (which is not a theory, but an assertion) is as 
mythical as the Ngapuhi. 
Having rejected European authorship, the next question 
arising was the antiquity of the designs. And here we found 
ourselves necessarily without any sure guide. Dr. von Haast 
appears to lay considerable stress upon the “scaling” of the 
rock surface. But it is obvious that this can in no sense what- 
ever be taken as anything more than the merest indication. 
