A CURIOUS FIND.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 February 1916, Page 6

A CURIOUS FIND.

AT STEWART ISLAND ZEPPELIN OR FLOATING MINE? Bluff, February 4, A curious find has been made on the beach at Mason's Bay, Stewart Island, where Mr. Adamson, tiie only settler in those out-of-the-way parts, picked i'p an. airtight brass Zeppelin-shaped object 4ft in length and -2ft in diameter. There were three aif-tight chambers inside, each having a coppered entrance as though filled or emptied by tubes. Mr. Adamson states that it is splendidly made and must have cost a good deal. There is some inscription upon it, but the only word that is legibile is "London," tlie other words having been rubbed oil. There were barnacles on a portion of the ''Zeppelin," showing that it had been in the water for some time, but there is nothing else to show whence it came or what it was. Mason's Bay has something of a reputation for its recovery of flotsam and jetsam, and it was only last year that Mr. Adamson-picked up a bottle which had been thrown into the water. at Buenos Ayres, and it had travelled in the great western current from South America past Africa and Australia and finished up on Mason's Bay. A large number of Professor Myers' short bottles, which were put into the Tasman Sea last year, have also found their way to Mason's Bay. As for the present find, there appears to be no solution as to its identity, although there are several suggestions of a not very probable nature. The most favored theory is that the object is a mine float which has probably esaped from some Australian harbor.