PRE-HISTORIC CARVING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 192, 23 November 1910, Page 2

PRE-HISTORIC CARVING

MR. CLEMENT WRAGGE'S THEORY.

By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Yesterday.

Returning to New Zealand after an absence of seven months, Mr. Clement Wragge, who was a passenger from Sydney by the Maheno to-day, is as firmly convinced as ever that the inscriptions he discovered at the Bay of Islands have nothing to do with the Maoris, but have a prehistoric origin.

Speaking to a reporter on the subject, Mr., Wragge said: "The~marks have, to my mind, been made by a people allied to those who built the wonderful statues and carved the marvellous inscriptions on Easter Island. The latter have nothing to do with the Polynesians, but are allied to those found in Central and South America long ages ago. In fact they refer to the Atlantean race, which intermingled with the still more ancient race ol Lemurians. These lam convinced inhabited a land which once existed where is now the Pacific Ocean, with Easter Island, Pitcairn, Tahiti, Riatea, Fiji, Caledonia and Raratonga. The main or foundation rocks of New Zealand, South-East Australia and Tasmania are undoubtedly," declared Mr. Wragge, "the remains sticking up of that old Lemurian land. I have information," he added, "that in the north of New Zealand (I do not care to disclose the exact locality at present) there are to be found in certain caves human bones ol enormous size, far larger than those ol human beings of to-day. If this as true they are the bones of the old Lemurian Atlantean race. I intend to have a look for them."