SUPPOSED ANCIENT FOREST.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2611, 20 September 1909, Page 7

SUPPOSED ANCIENT FOREST.

AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY. Mr R. Speight, assistant curator of the Canterbury Museum, and Dr Cockayne are investigating an interesting discovery which has been made by men engaged on excavating operations at the new children’s ward at the Christchurch Hospital (says the Christchurch correspondent of the “Evening Post ). About 12ft from the surface a fairly large number of stumps .and roots were met with, and some difficulty was experienced in getting through them on to the gravel beneath. Two- logs, nine inches in diameter, had to be sawn through, and some of the roots had to be removed. Mr Speight states that in the wood there is certainly a, good deal of manuka and white pine, and probably some black pine and totara, but the latter species has not yet been determined. Some of the trees had fallen prone, but some evidently had been growing naturally. He believes that the trees formed part of a vast forest which covered the plains on which Christchurch and its environments have arisen. Evidence in regard to this ancient forest had been obtained before, and the recent discoveries are of a corroborative nature. In sinking artesian wells in Christchurch, for instance timber has been found at a depth of 180 ft near the centre of the city and at a depth of 230 ft in the northern end. Ihe greatest recorded depth at -which timber has been found in this way is 717 ft at Islington. The timber recently unearthed was covered with gravel, sand, and earth, and Mr Speight says that the forest must have been very old, the trees having grown there many centuries ago. He believes that the forest owing to the depression of the land which took place gradually, and not, apparently, at a time of great earthquakes. __________