Pabk. — On the Amount of Coal in New Zealand. 325 



Wairangamea Stream enters the Waipaoa Eiver. Should 

 these wells strike oil — as there is every prospect of their doing 

 — the undertaking will be in a great measure assured, for facts 

 will be available of much geological value, and the east coast 

 district will have a great future before it. 



The sections accompanying this paper (PL XXIV.) show the 

 character of the rocks passed through at the South Pacific 

 Company's well. The thickness of the several sections is also 

 given, as taken from the working-sheets of the manager in 

 charge, who kindly placed all available information at my dis- 

 posal. 



Art. XXXVIL — On the Extent and Duration of Workable 



Coal in Neto Zealand. 



By James Park, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey 



Department. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 12th Sept., 1888.] 



At the present time, when the Australian Colonies are looking 

 to New Zealand for their supplies of coal, it may be of some 

 interest to consider what position we are in to meet this new 

 demand. I hope to be able to show that, whatever may be 

 said as regards the extent of our metalliferous deposits, we 

 are at least supplied with an abundance of fossil fuel sufficient 

 to meet all our requ.irements for many years to come. 



All the workable coals of this country belong to the Cre- 

 taceo-tertiary formation, of the Geological Survey classifica- 

 tion, which consists in many places of two distinct groups of 

 beds, differing widely in their mineral characters, in the gene- 

 ral sequence of their strata, and in their fossil remains, the one 

 being characterised by a fauna atad flora with a distinctly 

 Tertiary /acies, the other by forms of an equally-pronounced 

 Secondary type. The relation existing between these two 

 groups of beds has not been very satisfactorily determined ; 

 but they are at present supposed by the Survey to be in a 

 manner horizontal equivalents — that is, the result of contem- 

 poraneous deposition, the Tertiary strata being taken to repre- 

 sent the shallow-water and the Secondary strata the deep- 

 water conditions of the same period. 



How far this theory will meet the stratigraphical and 

 palaeontological difficulties of the case, considering that both 

 these groups are sometimes found to exist in the same areas, 

 I do not propose to discuss in this paper ; it is of great import- 

 ance, however, to note that, with one or two exceptions, all 

 our workable coals occm- at the base of the group with a Ter- 

 tiary /acics. 



