KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 57. NIO 4. 149 



the statement from a låter time that Kauai, the island where the iron was found, is also 

 the island where driftwood is especially met with. Cook's men saw in a house some bits 

 of wood that were worm-eaten; and the natives indicated that they had been cast on 

 land by the waves; "and we had their own express testimony", he adds, "that they had 

 got the inconsiderable specimens of iron found amongst them from some place to the east- 

 ward". 



The only other man who mentions finds of iron which could be traceable to a time 

 prior to Cook, is Kotzebue. He says that both on Oahu and on Maui there had been found 

 ships anchors of iron, 1 but on this Jarves remarks: "No other author mentions the cir- 

 cumstance, nor have I been able to gather any light upon the subject from the native 

 accounts, though it is not at all improbable that such did exist, and have since been 

 buried in the sand, or overgrown in the coral reef." 2 



1 Beise um die Wett 1823—26, II, p. 91. 



2 Op. cit., p. 55 note. — The renowned ethnographer Adolf Bastian says: "Das mit Schiffstriimmeni 

 angetriebene Eisen (Hao pae öder Strand-Eisen) wurde von den Häuptlingen den Göttern (akua Kii) dargebracht" 

 (Zur Kenntniss Hawaii' s, Berlin 1883, p. 29); but no source is quoted for this statement, which seems to 

 indicate a mueh more plentiful occurrence of iron than Cook mentions, nor have I found it contirmed anywhere 

 in the literature of the subjeet. The same holds good of Bastian's pronouncement: "Fur die mit einheimischer 

 Legende verknupfte Entdeckung Hawaii*s . . . werden Steinfiguren in vermeintlich altspanischer Tracht angefuhrt." 

 Bastian's hope that he would be able to get these stone images sent to him for closer examination, seems not 

 to have been fulfilled. {Die heilige Sage der Polynesier, Leipzig 1881, p. 302.) 



