Miscellanea . 
451 
localities at which he observed mineral springs, particularly be¬ 
tween the Bay of Islands and Hokianga, where their temperature 
varied from 124° to 154°, and having an alkaline taste; the 
surface was covered with sublimations of sulphur. Along the 
delta of the Waikato, hot springs rise from the escarpments of 
the hills, forming deposits like those of Iceland and St. Michael, 
Azores, containing 75 per cent, of silica. There is also a cold 
silicifying spring near Cape Maria. Dr. Dieffenbach has examined 
into all the traditions respecting the existence of the Moa , or 
great bird of New Zealand, and concludes that it has never been 
seen alive by any natives of New Zealand,: the rivers in which 
its bones have been found flow between banks from 30 to 60 feet 
high, and as they are continually changing their course the 
remains of the Moa may have been derived from tertiary fluviatile 
strata. 
DESCRIPTION OF A FOSSIL MOLAR TOOTH OF A 
MASTODON : Discovered by Count Stuzelecki in Aus¬ 
tralia. By Professor Owen, F.R.S. 
(From the Annals of Natural History, October , 1844.) 
The large fossil femur, transmitted to England in 1842 by Lieut.- 
Col. Sir T. L. Mitchell, Surveyor-General of Australia, from the 
alluvial or tertiary deposits of Darling Downs, and described in 
the £ Annals of Natural History' for January 1843, p. 8. fig. 1, 
gave the first indication of the former existence of a large Mas- 
todontoid quadruped in Australia. 
The portion of tooth described and figured in the same com¬ 
munication presenting characters very like those of the molars of 
both the Mastodon giganteus as well as of the Dinotherium , and 
being from the same stratum and locality as the femur with which 
it was transmitted, was regarded by me as having most probably 
belonged to the same animal; and, on the authority of drawings 
subsequently received from Sir T. Mitchell, was referred to the 
genus Dinotherium . 
2 k 2 
