POLICE INTERESTED

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 148, 18 March 1939, Page 12

POLICE INTERESTED

Fragment Of Skull Found North Of Claverly

OF COMPARATIVELY RECENT ORIGIN By Telegraph—Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, March 17. The police have a tantalizing subject for speculation in the fragment of human skull found recently ou the beach at Goose Bay, some miles north of Claverly. It may be a clue to the fate of Mrs. Harriet Jane Patience, aged 60, who disappeared on October 4 from the Public Works' camp in Clayerly, where her husband, Arthur John Patience, was employed. In the fragment of skull the police cannot at the moment see anything that will carry them much nearer a solution of the mystery. It is merely the dome of a skull, like the drinking cups the ancient Maoris made out of the brainpans of their fallen enemies, and indeed the find was thought at first to bo no more than a relic of Maori days such as is often picked up along the coast. An examination showed, however, by the amount of animal matter present In the bone, that it was of comparatively recent origin and it has been submitted to the pathologist at the Christchurch Hospital, Dr. A. B. Pearson, for expert examination.