Hill. — Artesian-water Prospects at Wanganui. 345 



places of special geological interest. At the two former 

 the exposures show beds younger than the blue sandy clays 

 in Shakespeare Cliff, and corresponding in their main 

 characteristics with the higher beds seen in the hills along 

 the left bank of the river from Wanganui to the sea. At 

 Kaimatera the rocks are made up mostly of grits, gravels, and 

 pumiceous sands, passing into fine powdery pumice in several 

 places. At Upokongoro the rocks are made up of mixed 

 clays, conglomerates, grits, and pumice-sands, and they pre- 

 sent in their bedding many varieties of movement during de- 

 position. Between Upokongoro and the Kaiwaiki upper and 

 lower quarries I saw no traces of fossiliferous rocks except 

 in certain sand-beds, which here and theie make their appear- 

 ance. At Kaiwaiki, limestone similar to the Napier upper 

 limestone is being quarried on the right bank, and half a 

 mile or so further up the river similar limestone is found at a 

 much higher level, whilst from 10ft. to loft, above water-mark 

 blue sandy clay-beds are exposed, corresponding, apparently, 

 with the Shakespeare Cliff beds, sixteen miles or so lower 

 down the river. 



The several important points of vantage enumerated above 

 will make it possible to deduce some facts as to the cha- 

 racter of the underlying beds in the vicinity of Wanganui. 

 The oldest rocks that are exposed in the district belong 

 to the blue-sandy-clay series. These are met with, as pointed 

 out above, at Shakespeare Cliff, Landguard, and along the 

 sea-shore between the mouth of the Kai-Iwi Stream and the 

 Wanganui Eiver mouth. No exposure of the blue sandy- 

 clays is met with between Shakespeare Cliff and Kaiwaiki, 

 and all the rocks met with between these two places belong — 

 so it appears to me — to the upper beds of the series. The blue 

 clays, with the calcareous sands overlying them, sometimes 

 form, as at Kaiwaiki, lenticular bands of limestone, and in 

 one place they thicken out into a true limestone mass, and 

 resemble the Napier upper limestones, as they appear at what 

 is known as Scandinavian Point. The beds overlying these 

 correspond to the Kidnapper pumice and conglomerate deposits, 

 which, with the Eedcliffe conglomerates, form a syncline 

 underneath the Heretauuga Plain. Thus, all the rocks in the 

 vicinity of Wanganui belong to a recent period, and they are 

 the actual equivalents of the beds from which the people of 

 Napier and surrounding district derive their artesian water- 

 supply. 



I am not aware of the actual distance between the mouth 

 of the Kai-iwi Stream and the Kaiwaiki quarries, nor of the 

 height above sea-level of the river at the latter place ; but 

 from what has been stated it will be readily understood that 

 the slope or inclination of the blue clays from the places named 



