INTERESTING- DISCOVERY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1921, 21 April 1880, Page 3

INTERESTING- DISCOVERY.

Mr Edward Smith writes to the " Timaru Herald" as follows:—While out on a shooting expedition on January 10th, in company with Mr Trczise, of Waitohi Flat, I came across a deep gully, about fourteen miles west by north from Temuka, having a deep cliff eighty feet on one side, with a slope of eighty feet below it. The base of the cliff was slightly hollowed out, apparently caused by a heavy fall of earth, and in the hollow thus formed were embedded the fossil remains of several kinds of fish, varying in sizo from thirty feet long and downwards. These remains are very distinctly formed, and can be traced without the slightest difficulty by black layers in the solid rock. The whole of these remains, as far as I could perceive, were contained within a space of about 300 square yards. They are indeed most curious, and the antiquarian or anyone who is in the slightest degree interested in the wonderful works of Nature will be ex tremely gratified by a visit to them. It is impossible, on a cursory examination, to hazard a guess as to their age, but the mere fact of their being embedded in the solid rock shows that they must have been in their present position for many thousands of years ; and gives one proof more that at one time New Zealand existed only submerged by the mighty Pacific.