June 14, 1858.] 
SOUTH DISTRICT OF OTAGO. 
355 
There is also a table of barometrical altitudes and a comparative 
vocabulary of Maori and Malay words. Numerous latitude obser- 
vations are alluded to, but do not appear in the present paper. 
A large part of the country traversed, was utterly destitute of 
man ; the white race net having reached so far, and the aborigines 
(the Maori) having abandoned it. There are marks of the previous 
existence of the latter in numerous small ovens scattered about the 
country ; those that are on the skirts of forest land were usually 
found complete and apparently recent, those that are in the open 
country were broken and very old. Mr. Thomson remarks that 
natives would always build their ovens where wood was abundant, 
and argues that there has been a gradual diminution of forest land, 
and that ovens have been successively built on the borders of the 
forest as it gradually receded. Now the edges of the forest are 
choked with scrub grasses and ferns, which, on being set fire 
to, burn vigorously, destroying to various depths a fringe of the 
adjacent trees. In about three years’ time, grass takes the place of 
the burnt scrub ; scrub ultimately takes the place of the burnt forest ; 
and thus the forest has a constant tendency to retrograde where fires 
are frequent, either from accident or design. 
Other marks exist which have frequently been ascribed to the 
handiwork of aborigines, but which our author traces to an en- 
tirely different source. They are small mounds, sometimes heaps 
of stones, with little or no earth, which are scattered promiscuously 
about the country. On one side of them, is invariably a hollow. 
He attributes them to fallen trees, that have uprooted a large 
quantity of earth, which is left as a heap after their complete decay, 
the rains having washed out more or less of the earth and left the 
stones where they were. The hollow is the place where the root 
formerly stood. 
There is much grandeur in the scenery of the part of New 
Zealand traversed by Mr. Thomson. The higher course of the 
Matuaru, its fall, and the Dome Mountain are especially mentioned. 
The Dome is only 4505 feet high, but it commands a grand and 
extensive view from the eastern to the south-western coast, and 
embraces the serrated edges of the Eyre Mountains, covered with 
snow. The height of the snow-line is not mentioned, but on Mr. 
Thomson ascending the Dome, and also an adjacent peak of much the 
same altitude, on the 15th of February (corresponding to our 15th 
of August), when the day was a hot one on the plains below, water 
froze during the time he was making his observations, in the one 
case at 10 a.m. and in the other at noon. 
Mr. Thomson has collected some facts, which give hope that the 
