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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 165, 28 April 1874, Page 2

No fewer than nineteen girls have come forward to compete for provincial scholarships in Otago, and the fact is regarded with great satisfaction by the Dunedin press. Four of the nineteen “ fair girl ” scholars are from the Dunedin District Schools, and seven are from the country. The Southern Cross says that the mission of the Hon. D. M‘Lean to Sydney, whither he sailed from Auckland on the ifth inst., is to regotiate arrangements for the laying of the telegraphic cable between Australia and New Zealand.

The Evening Post gives the following names as the directors of the .Veu? Zealand Tinies Company (Limited): —The Hon. J. Vogel; George Hunter, Esq., M.H.R. ; Walter Johnston, Esq., M.H.R.; Joe Bransfield, Esq.; F. A. Krull, Esq.; and E. W. Mills, Esq. “Who did it,” asks the Southern Cross in an article of considerable merit and interest. From what is stated it would appear that in some work recently done by order of the Improvement Commissioners the root of a tree, and several small branches, were found, all of which had been chopped and hacked about in remote ages with a stone adze that was lying near to them. The Commissioners were causing a sewer to be cut in Coburgstreet, Auckland, when this interesting discovery was made, and the men were at work 25 feet below the surface of what is known as the Barrack Hill. The ground was composed of sand and day apparently undisturbed by volcanic action at any time, the strata being regular. Two conclusions that appear irresistible may bo drawn from this. The time that the Maoris migrated hither is known accurately enough to warrant the inference that the root and the boughs in question were not hacked by them. If the work was not theirs, and the fact that there were over the wood from eight to ten feet of regular strata seems to put this beyond doubt, some anterior race must have inhabited tin* island. The question then follows, what became of this race ? Did the Maoris acquire the land by conquest, or did its former inhabitants die away in a natural manner? Or was there some violent disturbance of nature? Several works of a similar character to that which unearthed so interesting a relic are on hand, and their progress is being watched in the hope that other discoveries of a like nature may be made. Wellington Independent.