GRUESOME FIND

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1588, 4 November 1912, Page 8

GRUESOME FIND

COFFINS IN A CAVE. Whilst sheltering his boat under the lee of B'Urville Island last week, Mr. E, C. Perano, master of the small steamer Elsie, made a discovery which' should lead to sojne investigations being made (states the "Picton Press"). He and the engineer, Mr. Tregurthen, were chasing a crane to its lair, when they stumbled i across a cave, the opening of which had been mado discernible by the falling away of the rocks and boulders over the entrance. - With a lantern they investigated the in-, 1 terior, which Mr. Perano estimated to be < between sixty and seventy feet- in length. The-floor of the cave was feet deep in silt, the high tides having evidently invaded it. for ages. The parts of some dozen or more coffins, roughly hewn by some blunt instrument, wero found. The wood was mostly totara, and the majority of the coffins had been over six feet in length. Tho boards had not been nailed together, ■holes being placed about two inches apart,, flax probably being tho primitive means of binding tho four sides together. Whilst crawling over tho silt, Mr. Perano felt something hard under his body, which turned out to bo a skull of a man. The coffin planks were carefully packed up on one side of tho cave, with a view to further investigation, Tho "find" is certainly an interesting ■ ono, and until a moro comprehensive search, is made opinions will doubtless differ as to whether the relics of the past are the remains of shipwrecked sailors or Natives of New Zealand.