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New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 377, 14 March 1849, Page 3

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, 14th March, 1849. ' Sir, — I felt much disgust, on reading in the Wellington Independent of Saturday week, a report of the undeserved attacks on yourself, and of the unmerited censures of Governor Grey's conduct, by the after dinner orators, at the alehouse dinner of Thursday, the first of March, but attributing the violence and exaggeration of some of the speakers to the number of toasts they had drank, and the excitement and virulence of the very Independent Editor, to his head remaining muddled by the gratuitous circulation of that wine he so much praises, I should yet have passed it over with silent scorn, but for his repetition of abuse in Wednesday's paper, at an interval of five days, in which period one would think time and soda water might have cooled his head and abated his animosity. No excitement on the subject of a Representative Government really exists in the minds of a majority of the population of Port Nicholson, even amongst the greater portion of those who signed the petition, very few of whom had ever seen any copy of that document until it was printed in the Wellington Independent, after nearly all the signatures of which the Independent Editor boasts so much had been obtained on sheets of paper, industriously hawked about for signatures by persons who would scarcely accept a refusal to their application r and whose impbrtunity caused many to sign who were either ignorant as to the precise purport of that document, or felt perfectly indifferent on the subject. Others again, friendly to Representative Institutions, and in no way doubting the intelligence of our- population, *nd their fitness to exercise the electoral franchise, consider that another difficulty would arise in obtaining men sufficiently free from motives of personal profit, class interests, factious views, and so void of political dishonesty, as to be safely trusted with the reins of Government, the expenditure of the revenue, and the power of making laws for their fellow subjects, the more especially as the working class, by their inability to afford that time which the duties of a Representative would require, would be practically, though not nominally, excluded from seats in the Council Chamber. The self-conceit of the acknowledged political leader of the faction was ridiculously exhibited on the evening of their vtiunted dinner, in the manner in which he acquaints us, that Governor Grey stated to himwbat would be the consequence of his (the learned Doctor's) refusing to be nominated a member of the Legislative Council, namely, a stoppage of the public works now in progress. Of course, if Governor Grey ever made such a speech or threat, which I do not believe, our patriotic Doctor could not miss such an opportunity of showing his independence, when the whole evil results of his obstinacy were likely to fall upon others; and it would no doubt have been a consolation to the mechanics and labourers, who would in such a case be thrown out of employment "by the cessation of Government expenditure, caused by his perverseness, that as an equivalent to food fortheir families, they would have the satisfaction of knowing that a gentleman who modestly compares himself to the great Hampden, had refused to accept an honor, as great as it would have been undeserved. Governor Grey appears to have erred in judgment in condescending to solicit our medical friend's acceptance of an unpaid office at all, possibly had it been a well salaried one, it might not Lave been declined, neither are we so destitute of judgment as to think him an antipodean Hampden, or to consider him theonly main fit to direct the energies of the settlers. In my opinion the power of uttering vapid or ranting speeches., in a sepulchral tone, and the ability of writing* bombast and twaddle with tolerable grammatical correctness, are rather weak grounds on which to assume the leadership of the .intelligent settlers of Fort Nicholson, and I think we can say, in the words of the old ballad of Chevy Chacc, that we have "Five hundred as good as he." And he may feel assured that while the working men are fully employed, receive a fair price for their labour, and feel their lives and properties as secure as in their native Britain, and also enjoy the civil liberty and social rights of Englishmen, as we all do at present, that we shall still laugh at those visions of imaginary despotism, which only exist in the excited fancies of himself and his colleagues. And he may further rely on^the fact, that despite of alehouse oratory .we still have the fullest confidence in' the ability and justice of Governor Grey. I am, Sir, " 1 Your humble seront, . ' . ,'\ ; - -*• -; . '" //; v 5-A Worlhng.Man;..,;

On the Fossif Remains of Birds collected in various parts of New Zealand, by Mr. Walter Mantell, of Wellington. By Gideon Algerkok Mantell, Esq., LL.D., F. R.S., Vice-President of the Geological Society. ( Concluded from No. 374 .) 111. General Conclusions. — From the scattered facts which I have .thus brought together in ojder to throw some light on a question of such deep , palaeontological interest — upon the principle that the feeblest rays, when concentrated into a focus, will produce some degree of illumination — I think we may safely infer that the islands cf New Zealand were densely peopled at a period geologically recent, by tribes of gigantic ostrich-like birds, of species and genera which have long since been obliterated from the face of the earth; and that subsequently to this ".Ageof Struthionidee," the land has undergone those physical changes, by which the areas occupied by the ornithic ossiferous deposits, aud the beds of shingle and loam, which now form terraces from 50 to IQO feet above the sealevel, were elevated to their" present positions. This inference seems to be" corroborated by the fact that the existiug mountain torrents and rivers flow in deep channels which they have eroded in these pleistocene deposits ; in like manner as the rivers of Auvergne have excavated their course through the mammiferous tertiary strata of that country. The accounts given by Mr. Coleuso, the Rev. R. Taylor, and othjrs, of the exposure of the bone-bed in the channels of the moun-tain-streams, and o( the bones being left on the river-shoals after heavy v fioods, remind us of the conditions under which the mammalian fossils of the SubiHimalayas were first brought under the notice of our eminent countrymen, Major Cautley and Dr. Falconer. And in New Zealand, as in India, the fossil remains of extinct animals are associated with those of existing genera ; and the land is stiil inhabited by diminutive representative forms of the colossal beings which flourished in the pleistocene, or early human epoch ; for the Apteryx and the Porphurio may be regarded as the living types of the Moa and the Notornis. I do not deem it necessary to enlarge oh the question whether the Diuornis and Palapteryx still exist in New Zealand ; on this point I would only remark, that Mr. Colenso, who was the first observer that investigated the nature of the fossil remains with due care and the requisite scientific knowledge, (having determined the struthious affinities of the birds to which the bones belonged, and pointed out their remarkable characters, ere any intelligence could have reached him of the result of Professor Owen's examination of the specimens transmitted to this country,) has given, in his masterly paper before quoted, very cogent reasons for the belief that none of the true Moas exist, though it is probable the last of the race were exterminated by the early inhabitants of these inlands. But whatever may be the result of future researches as to the relative age of the cssiferous deposits, or the existence or extinction of the colossal bipeds whose relics are before us, this fact cannot be questioned — the vast preponderance of the class of birds which prevailed (and still prevails) in the fauna of New Zealand, to the almost entire exclusion of mammalia and reptiles. Any palaeontologist who saw the entire collection formed by my son alone could not but feel surprise at its extent and variety. I may venture to affirm that such an assemblage of the fossil bones of "birds was never before seen in Europe — nearly one thousand specimens collected from various parts of the country, with scaicely any intermixture of those of any other class : it is a phenomenon as marvellous as the exclusively reptilian character of the N fauna of the Wealden epoch.- In fact, New Zealand at the present time, as Dr.DiefFenbach observes, offers the most sti iking instance of an acknowledged fact in every branch of natural history, namely, that different areas of dry land are endowed with peculiar forms of animal and vegetable life : centres or foci of creation, so to speak,' of certain organic types. And this organic law, with the effects of which, in the palaeozonic and secondary ages, our geological researches have made us familiar, appeais to have continued in unabated energy, to the present moment. In fact, the most remarkable apparent anomalies in the terrestri.'al faunas and floras of the secondary epochs 'are not without modern parallel. • ; Thus New Zealand, with its peculiar ftora, characterised by the predominance of ferns, club-mosses &c, ,to the almost entire exclusion of the graminaceae, — and its fauna, comprising but two or three mammals and reptiles, — and the enormous development of the class of birds, — presents a general correspond dence with the lands of the carboniferous and, triassic epochs. ; Australia and Van^Diemen's Land possess ■ a,' flora equally peculiar and extraordinary* , and t «|figjaja^lilcethat qfc-any ,gthef pM,-pf the

world, including some of the most anomalous of existing forms, as for example that marvellous creatu. c the Ornitborhynchus. These countries, in the abundance and variety of the Cycadeaceae, Araucar'ue, &c. — in the marsupial character of the great proportion of the mammalia — and in the Terebratulit and Trigoniae, and the Cestraciont fishes which swarm in the seas that wash their shores, approximate in their organic relations more nearly to those ancient lands of which the Stonesfield oolites are the debris, than to any of the present regions of the earth. Lastly, we have a reflected image, as it were, of the "Age of Reptiles" of the secondary formations, in the exclusively reptilian character of the quadrupeds of the Galapagos Islands, one species of mouse being the only indigenous mammalian. This Archipelago is a group of volcanic islands situated under the equator, between five and six hundred miles westward of the American coast. "It is," observes Mr. Darwin in his delightful Journal, " a little world within itself; most of the organic productions are aboriginal creations found nowbeie else. Seeing every height crowned with its crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-streams still distinct, we are led to believe that within a period geologically recent, the unbroken ocean was here spread out." These islands swarm with herbivorous marine and terrestrial reptiles allied to the Iguanidae, which are known in no other part of the world ; and they are as completely distiuct from all other existing reptiles, as are the extinct Iguanodon and Hylajosaurus. The flora '.oo contains more than one hundred plants unknown elsewhere. There is not a fauna or flora in any of the ancient geological t periods that presents greater anomalies. Mr. Darwiu emphatically observes, that "when we consider the well-beaten paths made by the thousands of huge tortoises with which these islands are traversed, — the many turtles, — the great warrens of the terrestrial Amblyrhynchi, amd the groups of maiine species basking on the coast-rocks of every island of this Atchipelago, — we must admit that there is no other quarter of the world where the Order of Reptiles replaces the herbivorous mammalia in so extraordinary a manner. The geologist on hearing this will probably refer back his mind to those Secondary Epochs, when saurians, some herbivorous, some carnivorous, and of colossal dimensions, swarmed on the lands and in the seas. It is therefore his especial observation that this Archipelago, instead of possessing a humid climate and a rank vegetation, must be considered as extremely and, and for an equatorial climate remarkably temperate." If the ancient philosophers, ere the discoveries of Columbus had opened the New World to the European mind, had found in a fossil state such collocations of the remains of animals and plants as are presented by New Zealand, Australia, and the Galapagos Islaiivls, how impossible would it have been for them, by any comparison with existing nature within their circumscribed geographical boundary, to have conceived the possibility of such assemblages of animated beings existing contemporaneously with themselves! In fact, the present geographical distribution of peculiar types of terrestrial animals and plants, affords as many anomalies in the relative predominance of different classes and orders, as are to be found in the vestiges of the earlier ages of our planet. From these considerations I think we must conclude, that throughout all geological time the changes on the earth's surface, and the appearance; and extinction of peculiar types of animals and plants, have been governed by the same physical and organic laws ; and that the paroxysmal terrestrial disturbances, though apparently in the earlier ages involving larger areas, and operating with greater energy than the volcanic and subterranean action of modern times, did not affect the established order of organic life upon the surface of the" globe ; and that throughout the innumerable ages indicated by the sedimentary formations, there was at no period a greater anomaly in the assemblages of certain types of the animal and vegetable kingdom than exists atthe present time. At a subsequent meeting of the Society, Dr. Mantell communicated the following additional remarks : — Since I had the honour cf communicating to the Geological Society a notice of the collection of fossil bones of birds from New Zealand, I have received a* letter from Mr. Walter Mantell, dated Wellington, June 18, 1847, containing some details respecting the bone-deposits and the strata with which they are associated, which are of considerable interest, and confirm in every essential particular the conclusions suggested in my former communication. The following are extracts' fr.om my son's letter :—": — " The principal part of the best specimens I have transmitted to you I obtained from near the embouchure of a stream called 'Waingongoro, which lies about a mile and a. half south of Waimate in .the Ngatiruanui district:: -The country here-

about is an elevated table-land, with deep tortuous gul'ies, through which the torrents and streams take their course to the sea. That of Waingongoro, which is as tortious as any of them appears to rise in Mount Egraont (the volcanic ridge which is 9000 feet high) ; indeed it must have its source there, or in the short chain of hills which lies between that mountain and the coast in a westerly direction ; for in returning to New Plymouth by the mountain road-=~a forest-track at the back of the volcanic ridge — I must have crossed it, did it rise elsewhere. The Waingongoro evidently discharged itself at some distant period into the sea, far from its present embouchtfre, as is proved by the existence, of a line of cliffs which extends inland, and has clearly been produced by the eroding action of the' river. Driven from its course, probably by a change in the relative level of the land and sea, it has formed its present channel, which cuts through a hundred feet of loose conglomerate, overlying a bed of finely laminated sand, and containing wood in a vexy recent state, — so recent as to bear cutting with a knife. ' '• The conglomerate is composed of an infinite variety of volcanic rocks, with numerous immense rounded masses of the same kind. The clay abounds in marine shells, all' of existing species (?) ; the upper layers contain but few shells, but the lowermost abounds in them, and they are in a perfect state—^-not drifted shells. In a stratum of sand at Wanganui the shells of a sandy-bottomed sea are found, with some fragments of large Nautili. Between Takikau and Ohawetokotoko there is a wide flat of undulating sand, about two hundred yards across. On my first visit tbe surface was covered with bones of men, moas, and seals, &c, which had been overhauled by the Rev. R. Taylor. I had some deep openings made near the base of the ancient cliffs, under the pa Ohawe ; and at the same level as that on which were the strewn fragment* of bones I have mentioned, I came to the regular bone deposit. The bones were mostly perfect in shape, but so soft, that if grasped strongly they would change, as if by magic, into clay. Unfortunately tbe natives soon caught sight of my operations, and came down in shoals, trampling on the bones I had carefully extracted and lain out to dry. My patience was tried to the utmost, and to avoid blows I was obliged to retreat and leave them in full possession of the field ; and to digging they went in right earnest, and quickly made sad havoc. No sooner was a bone perceived than a dozen pounced upon U, aid began scratching away the sand as if for their lives ; and the bone was of course smashed to pieces. lam only surprised that I ultimately succeeded in getting any entire. " The natives affirm that this sand-flat to Rangatapu was one of the places first dwelt upon by their ancestors ; and this seems not unlikely, for in digging in various places I found small circular beds of ashes and charcoal and bones, very ancient, and such as are generally left by the native fires that' have been long lighted in the same spot. Fragments of obsidian, native flint, two fishingline stones and a whalebone meri (a sort of weapon) were also dug up. The natives told me, and their assertion was borne out by the appearance of the place, that within their memory the entire area had been covered by drift-sand ; in fact, tbe bones see*med always to be imbedded on or beneath an old surfacelevel. Columns of vertebrae when uncovered were lying in situ and perfect, with, in rare instances, skull and pelvis ; but to preserve these precious relics was impossible while beset with the hordes of maories ; and I could not drive or bribe them away. " The laigest femur, tibia and fibula were lying in their natural connection — the leg slightly bent at the knee; a chain of vertebra? of the largest size was discovered near then), and I doubt not the whole belonged to the same colossal bird. You will readily imagine how exasperating it was to me to see specimen after specimen destroyed befoi e my eyes, with no possibility of preventing it. From your ignorance of the excessive obstinacy and raulishness of the natives, I fear your indignation will be directed against me ; but if so, let me assure you, you are indeed in error. All that man could do I did to dissuade them from turning oryctologists or palaeornitbists ; but to no purpose. Men, women and children resolutely dashed at every bone that ap-" peared when the sand was removed ; and if they listened for a moment to my entreaties and remonstrances, it was but to return with, renewed vigour to the work of destruction. Although I am of a forgiving disposition, yet I cannot but hope Mr. Hawkins will place these maories. iv the same category with the Vandals who destroyed the Alexandrian library, and the Somersetshire * varmint' who mistook a Cbeiroligostinus for a ' viery zarp'nt.' Mixed with tbe bones, but .exceedingly rare, were the fragments of egg-shells', of which I sent you my then best specimens by post last April. \ have also found'jsix, oval ' 'rings and one broad circular ring of the £r*> '- ehea. In cbmtng d«#n from Nganiotu I dii- -

covered a few more remains of eggs ; one fragment is 1 four inches long, and gives a good chord by. whiph to- esiimate the size of the original; r as a* rough guf'ss, I ,may say thai a comraoj) bat woul.l have served as an egg cup for it : what a^loss for the breakfast- table ! And if native traditions are worthy of credit, the- ladies have cause to mourn the extinction (?) of the Dinornis : the long feathers of its crest were by their remote ancestors prized above all other ornaments ; those of the "White Crane, which now bear tbe highest value, were mere pigeons' feathers in comparison." I hare given these extracts without correction or comment, as they were written by my son for. my private information, that I might not weaken the graphic description of the exhumation of the bones exhibited and described at the last meeting of the Society. There are still some details required to render it certain that the bone-bed is always intercalated, when not laid bare by modern denuding causes, between the blue clay with recent marine shells and the conglomerate of volcanic pebbles and boulders which forms a bed of from fifty to a hundred feet thick ; but so far as I can interpret my son's meaning, and upon comparison of his statements with those of Mr. Colenso and others, I conclude that such is its true geological position. There is also some doubt whether in the heaps of ancient fires which contain bones of man, dog, and moa, those of tht colossal birds may not have been introduced by accident, and their charred appearance have been occasioned by drying, from exposure to the air and sun ; but it must be remarked that these specimens never contain any of the sand in which they were imbedded, as the other examples do. These and other points will, I doubt not, be satisfactorily elucidated ere long, now that the collecting of the bones of the extinct birds of New Zealand i£ so earnestly and systematically pursued. In the meanwhile, the imperfect and hasty sketches of my son which I have placed before the Society, will not, I trust, be deemed altogether unworthy attention.