MORETON BAY.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 254, 5 January 1848, Page 3

MORETON BAY.

Fossij Bones. — We have been favoured by Mr. Tamer, who arrived in Brisbane from Major Innes station on the Darling Downs the other day, with the sight of a few remarkable fossil bones of gigantic dimensions, which were discovered by Lim in the bed of a creek on the iuu. The remains are those of an animal of extraordinary size — much larger than an elepbant — and have excited' the astonish* meat of every person who has had an opportunity of inspecting them. The head of this enormous animal is upwards of four feet in length, and is in a capital state of preservation. The fore arm measures three feet in length, and the other parts of the legs in proportion. Several of the teeth were found quite perfect, from which it would appear that the habits. of the animal was grnminiverous. It is Conjectured. that this gigantic quadruped was from fourteen to sixteen feet in height, a stature which* the enormous creature known as the Great Mastodon never attained, judging at least from the remains discovered in North America. Portions only of the skeleton were discovered by Mr. Turner, and it is much to be regretted that he did not succeed in obtaining the pelvis. The fossila are to be submitted to the inspection of Dr. Nicholson, and othet scientific men m Sydney. Dr. Leich-

hardfr pronounced them to be the most perfect specimens he had seen, but did not venture to give any opinion as to the era in which the animal may be supposed to have lived, or as to the genus to which it belongs. — Morclon Bay Courier.

Rumour of a Massacre by the Blacks. — It was reported on Monday last at Ipswich, that five men who were employed by Mr. Furber in erecting a new store at Wide Bay, had been treacherously murdered by the natives about ten days since. We are not aware what foundation there is for the report, but from a conversation we had with a gentleman, now in Brisbane, who resides within sixty or seventy miles of the locality where the occurrence is said to have taken place, we are inclined to doubt the truth of it; more particularly as the intelligence was brought in by one of the blacks and which, as far as we can learn, has not since been confirmed by any of thf residents in the neighbourhood ol Wide Bay. — Ibid, Nov. 3.