Pake. — On the Waitemata Scries. 393 



a large collection of mai'ine fossils from certain blue sandy 

 marls and marly greensands which rest on the denuded and 

 upturned edges of the " Chalk-marls." On examination at 

 the Colonial Museum these fossils were found to include 

 numerous Lower Miocene forms, together with Pectcn zittelli, 

 Hutton, Pecten fischeri, Zittel, and many corals and i^ora^umi- 

 fera which also occurred in the Orakei Bay beds."^' 



For this reason Mr. Cox in his report correlates the Komiti 

 beds with the Orakei Bay beds, which he thought should now 

 be regarded as Lower Miocene. Sir James Hector, in his 

 progress report for the same year, dissents from this view, 

 and considers that the Waitematas should be divided at the 

 Parnell grit, all the beds below this horizon, including the 

 Orakei Bay beds, being still retained as belonging to the Grey 

 Marls series of the Cretaceo-tertiary formation. 



Li 1880, and again in 1881, Mr. Cox re-examined this 

 point, and on both occasions reported that he was fully con- 

 vinced of the correctness of his former work, although he now 

 considered it possible that the Waitemata series might be of 

 Eocene age.f On the latter occasion he followed these beds 

 eastward to the Maraetai Eange, and at Turanga Creek found 

 them resting unconformably, as he thought, upon a con- 

 cretionary tufaceous sandstone, thus agreeing with Professor 

 Hutton, who had previously examined and described this line 

 of section.! 



In October, 1883, Mr. A. McKay, F.G.S., Assistant 

 Geologist, examined the Orakei Bay section, and the coast- 

 line from Lake Takapuna northward to Wade. In his report 

 he considers the Fort Britomart beds the horizontal equiva- 

 lents of the Orakei Bay beds, and in his section showing the 

 general structure of the country from Wade to Auckland he 

 shows the Parnell grit and associated beds resting highly 

 unconformably on the Orakei Bay beds at Hobson's Bay, 

 and on the hydraulic limestone at Wade.§ 



He also correlates the Takapuna breccia with the Parnell 

 grit and the Cape Eodney slaty breccia — with the former on 

 stratigraphical, and the latter on paleeontological gi-ounds ; and 

 concludes his report by stating that he supports Dr. Hector's 

 conclusion that the Waitematas should be divided at the 

 Parnell grit, the lithological characters of which he thinks 

 must mark an unconformity or stratigraphical break. 



Professor Hutton, on the 27th November, 1884, read a 

 paper before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury " On 

 the Age of the Orakei Bay Beds, near Auckland," in which he 



• " Geological Eeports," 1879-80, p. 37. 

 t " Geological Eeports," 1881, pp. 28 and 95. 

 + " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. iii., p. 244. 

 g " Geological Reports," 1883-84, p. 103. 



