A PREHISTORIC TEMPLE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 333, 8 March 1910, Page 5

A PREHISTORIC TEMPLE

IX THE FAR NORTH. , .SUPPOSED DISCOVERY lIY MI!. CLEMENT WRAGCE. MONUMENTS OF LEMURIAX INHABITANTS. HALF A MILLION YEARS OLD. AX INTERESTING THEORY. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Monday. Mr. Clement L. Wragge, who has been (lecturing and doing some, exploring work in the far north, claims to have discovered in the neighborhood of the Bay of Islands "the remains of an ancient city or temple that probably dates hack to the time of sun worship." He says "the hnjre blocks of stone." some nearly 15f« long, were evidently hewn by prehistoric man. Some have cups or holes scooped out on the face, which are evidently written records of immense antiquity, and others are marked with long and shpxt strokes, one being an an sated cross." Mr. Wragge has taken a series of photographs of this weird place, which is probably unique in New Zealand, jirob-blv. he si-vs. (Latins back to the mcgalithi" track of ancient man, when he was forced by change of climate to migrate from too northern to the southern hemisphere.

FURTHER PARTICULARS

Auckland, Last Night. In a further interview to-day, Mr. Wrajrge said his discovery linked New Zealand to the dim and distant past long before the Maori, long before the Aryan, to the days of prehistoric man. when scientists presumed man was a giant, perhaps eight feet high. ''These rocks," ho said, ''go back probably fve hundred thousand rears, and are mo*t likely a great deal older. T consider thev refer to sun worship. They are probablv. most probably, connected with that continent that once doubtless existed in the Western Pacific, called Leinuria, and in order to emphasise niv discovery T have provisionally called the spot Lenmrion. They date 'back most likely to the time when, in the vast ages past, owing to the secular shift in the inclination of the earth's axis, prehistoric man was forced to migrate from the higher latitudes of the nevihern hemisphere, following a track from the north-west to the south-east to the southern hemisphere, which had then in its turn become more genial." Mr. Wragge explained the nhenomenon which is referred to, and showed that once one Grasped th" theory of axial shift the history of the earth was an open book. Tt explained the coal measures found by Lieutenant Shnekletoii at the south polar regions, the evidences of a former tropical vegetation found br Commander Peary at th n North Pole. Countless ages ago the axis of the earth was horizontal, the North Pole pointing direct to the sun. and gradnallv the axis has shifted till it reached its present cant, and it was during this change that the climates changed an" 1 the race that inhabited the northern hemisphere, a megalithic race, travelled down fo the southern hemisphere, the climate of which was becoming milder, just in proportion as the north was growi'ii? colder. This migration had left manv traces in its track, and it is considered that they culminate in the wonderful monoliths at Ea.ster Island, which had been a source of speculation for years past. "These rocks which"" T have discovered flt-e probably connected with the mono--I;rhs of Easter Island." remarked Mr. TVraggP. "T prefer not to say anv more just at present as to the locality in which they lie. except that T had to get a special sailing boat to reach it. It is obsufft to tell me that they are the result of accident, or that they were geologically formed as we see them. There are. to mv mind, undoubted marks showing that they are the work of man. and in some of -them you can plainly see the chisel marks."

My. Percy Smith, upon hpintr told of the fir*t nipssaa;p, informed our contemporary that it may be that Professor Wraqje has romp across some stones between Whansraroa and the Bav of Tslnnd=. regarding which the Maoris have a tradition that thev wore used to hold the food at a great feast in which Captain Cook, the discoverer, took part. The Maoris hive always held these stones tnpu. and on oassintr them would make an ofTerin« of a twin or branch of a tree. A vear or two ft<ro the Oeological Department sent a geologist to examine them, and Tip found that they were nitnral decayed basaltic columns. Mr. M. Fraspr. who knows the country lying between the Bav of Islands. Whansraroa, and the surrounding district very well, was also interviewed on the question. He said he had observed the rock formation in Flint district very clo-elv. There are sevral outcrons there of basalt of the miocene neriod. which arc contemporaneous with our Sucrar Loaves and the Mnnukau system. Tn some places lava beds lie at a vervlow nn<rle, and arc. fractured in straight lines, crivins? the impression that they are the result of human agencv. "Possibly Mr. Wrngsp has been misled Itthese." said Mr. Fraspr. "but T should not think that a man of Mr. Wraesre's wide scientifi" knowledge could be mistaken in his observations."