Exciting Find

When excavations were being made in Abbott Street last week, about opposite the new Presbyterian Church at Te Hapara, the contractors came across a huge log buried some feet under the surface of the ground.

The log was in the way, so a piece about six feet long was cut out. When this was done it was noticed that the log had the rough shape of a canoe.

Members of the Museum executive and Philosophical Society were informed. Mr A. W. Pullar, soil research officer, identified a layer of ash above the canoe as belonging to the "Taupo Shower", estimated to have fallen about A.D. 100.

The exciting possibility that evidence of human handiwork might be found (which would upset all the present theories relating to earliest New Zealand history) had diggers at work Saturday morning.

But further excavation revealed that the log was not a canoe in the making, but probably a hollow totara which had fallen untold centuries ago.