380 Transactions. — Geology. 



different from those found in the beds which overhe the coal 

 in south-eastern Otago, Whangarei, and Kawakawa (these 

 I will call the Oamaru fauna). The Waipara fauna has not 

 yet been described and catalogued, but it includes Plcsiosauruii 

 and other marine saurians, Ammonites, Belemnites, Inoce- 

 ramns, and an extinct genus of gastropods called Conclio- 

 thyra. There are no living species of Mollusca. The flora 

 has been described by Baron von Ettingshausen, who considers 

 it to be Tertiary. We thus have here a parallel to the Laramie 

 fauna and flora of North x\merica ; but our fauna is more 

 closely related to that of the Fox Hills Group, below the 

 Laramie. The Oamaru fauna contains remains of cetaceans, 

 penguins, and turtles, as well as a number of other fossils, 

 which have been catalogued in the " Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc. of 

 London," vol. xh., p. 554; and in the " Proc. Lin. Soc. N.S. 

 Wales," 2nd series, vol. i., page 205. Among them are a few 

 living species, but no extinct genera, of Mollusca. It is ac- 

 knowledged to be a Tertiary fauna, and, according to Professor 

 Tate, represents the Eocene fauna of Australia ("Jour. E.S. of 

 N.S. Wales," vol. xxii., p. 245). In the Waipara district these 

 two fauiias are in superposition, and the Oamaru fauna lies 

 above the Waipara fauna, the two being separated by the 

 Amuri limestone, which contains few fossils, none of them 

 very characteristic. 



North of Auckland there is a limestone, called the hydraulic 

 limestone, which lies over the Oamaru fauna at Whangarei and 

 Kawakawa, as well as at Pahi and Paparoa in the northern 

 Kaipara district ; but in the upper Waitangi valley, near 

 Hokianga, and at Batley in the Kaipara, this limestone lies 

 directly oxev the Waipara fauna. It is allowed that the 

 hydraulic limestone always overlies the Oamaru fauna con- 

 formably, but Mr. Park states that it is unconformable to the 

 series of beds containing the Waipara fauna at Paparoa, Pahi, 

 &c., for the very good reason that "at different places it is 

 found lying on various members of that series" (" Rep. Geol. 

 Exp.," 1886-87, p. 229). Mr. McKay says that he could not 

 convince himself of this unconformity ; but he attempts no 

 <lisproof of Mr. Park's statement, and in the last paragraph of 

 his report he seems to admit that an unconformity is quite 

 possible. Sir James Hector, who discovered these beds at 

 Pahi, considered them to be of Jurassic age, and Mr. Cox in- 

 forms me that he is of the same opinion, and this of course 

 ijnplies that they are unconformable to the overlying beds. 



Now, the officers of the Geological Survey identify this 

 hydraulic limestone with the Amuri limestone of the Waipara, 

 and if this correlation is correct it follows that the Amuri 

 limestone overlies the Waipara fauna at the Waipara and at 

 Waitangi, while it also overlies the Oamaru fauna at Wha- 



