FRAGMENTS OF A LOST CONTINENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8111, 16 May 1906, Page 2

FRAGMENTS OF A LOST CONTINENT.

Tkc above is the title of a very intcrcstitg article contributed by Mr M. Frascr, of flow Plymouth, to the May number of the " .Red Funnel" magazine. Mr Fraser was a passenger by tkc Government steamer Hinemoa in April last year, when the vessel made her usual trip around the New Zealand lighthouses, and then visited the Auckland and other Islands, extending some 600 miles to the south of New Zealand, in search of castaways, and to keep tho Government provision depots in order. The narrator chats interestingly on the geology and flora of these little known portions of tho Southern Hemisphere, and leans to the opinion that they are really fragments of a great Antarctic continent that has disappeared. Landing at the Snares, with tho forbidding precipitous coast, was somewhat excit-1 'ng. _. . . "We pulled straight for

the cliff. Suddenly we rose on the se took in our oars, and shot into a cavi There was just room enough for th boat to pass in. . . Soon, however we passed through, and out into the sunshine and smooth water. We were in a lagoon sheltered from the sea by a broken rccE of rock." The lethargic curiosity of sea-lions, penguins, seals, is commented on, and the strange and beautiful forest that covered the wholo island—a forest of only one kind of tree, found in no other part of the world, except on one small island in the Auckland group, the " walking tree," or Oleara Lyalli. It appears that when the tree attains a certain size, the roots are unable ' to hold it erect, so it gradually leans until it rests on the ground, and the branches work deep down into the hog, there to take root a ß ai & and send out new stem s > which grow upright, uniil td C y a [ s o become too heavy to stand. ■• it j Si " says Mr Fr&ser, " the o'dest bit of the world's surface I had seen. Then we Ba )d good-bye to it, J"d could not h e! P thinking what an o'd, old thing it was, aud what a ro r thing man is, an d one thought grew out of another, an d cr °wded upon one. When was the beginning? When would the end be ■* ana " what was the meaning of it all P Then the stars came out." The visit to " le Auckland group was made memorab' 6 by ttte discovery of the castaways of tne barque Anjoti. The flqra'/of these 'egions is an intensely interesting st «<l/i and Mr Frascr intersperses n * ow n °tes. "We pushed our way th rou ß' 1 Peat lily plants, . . , The dr ' er patches are covered with a P'ant called Pluraphyllum—a big word, but only meaning rib-leaf. . . • And such loaves ! I am almost afraid to tell you their size. If you took half a sheet of corrugated iron, used for roofiug, and shapod like a kite, this would be a fair representation of the leaf."

Bird life, the habits of the albatross —its breast plumage that " might fitly cover the bosom of an augel, yet a man will take away its life sometimes simply for the joy of killing "-furnish the conclusion of the visit to Adam's Island.

The conclusion of tho article deals I with the lonely life of the woman who lived for many years alone ou Camp, bell Island, and in itself is a gem. Mr Eraser and Mr Duncan found a grave, covered with Scotch heather ! Mr Fraser has succeeded entirely in presenting au interesting and instructive account of his trip, and the article should be widoly read.