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had been once heated (to convey the heat to the food laid upon them),—and left, just as 
similar cooking-places are left at the present day by the natives ;—about two feet from 
which lay the bones. Close to the fireplace, and similarly imbedded, were bones of 
smaller birds, and of fishes similar to those found at present in the sea adjacent; all, 
including those of the Moa, having been evidently the remains of the food cooked 
here at a former period and eaten, as my native attendant remarked, by the then native 
inhabitants. A part of a leg bone, about two feet in length, apparently belonging to 
the same leg as this femur',—the bone haying been broken near the middle (probably 
in order to be placed more conveniently over the fireplace), was also found close to the 
femur. 
“The antiquity of these remains can only be arrived at by inference. How long it is 
since the superficial stratum of sand now exhibited at the top of the cliffs overlooking 
the sea, was formed by water and winds, is a matter of induction for the geologist. 
The sea is now undoing, and claiming the privilege of, former lacustrine or marine 
deposits. It would not be difficult to compute, with some shadow of approximation, 
the time required for the inroad of the ocean into strata of the nature of those described, 
supposing them to have extended from the summit of the cliffs to the ocean half a mile 
distant, along a line between the two heads or extremities of the bay: but that period 
would be conjectural only; for there are rocks, islets, and islands succeeding each 
other—mile beyond mile,—extending into the surrounding ocean, all of which are, by 
marine inroad, vestiges only of former rock-formations. Man and the Moa, however, 
were coeval at man’s cooking fireplace upon this substratum. 
**The mother ocean is altering, in some places very rapidly, the configuration of the 
coast of New Zealand. It is consuming some parts, and forming others by deposits ; 
and again removing former deposits. In a general view, many parts of the east coast 
of the North Island are being disintegrated, not to reappear above water for many ages ; 
while on the west coast, downs are not only being formed, stretching into the sea, but 
superimposing themselves—inland—in some places. 
“These shiftings of the outline of the earth’s crust are not limited to the sea-coast : 
for in the interior are many partial and violent settlings of the earth, evidently from 
earthquakes ; submerging, in some instances many feet under the surface of fresh- 
water lakes, land with the natives’ houses, fences, &c. upon it. This has happened in 
regard to the lake situated some miles from the east bank of the River Waipa, and 
south-eastwardly from the ruins of the famous sacked Pa (town) called ‘ Matakitaki.’ 
‘*W, E. Cormack, 
6, Perey Street, 22nd October, 1550." 
‘To Professor Owen, 
Royal College of Surgeons, London.” 
' Tt accords with the size of the tibia of the Dinornis gracilis.—K. O. 
