146 Transactions. 



collected by the present writer have been gathered from the glauconitic 

 band (&) and over-lying bed, and at least 50 ft. of limestone is exposed below 

 this bed. This limestone is poorly fossiliferous. Corals occur in the 

 glauconitic bands above the limestone, as well as PacJiymagas hntfoni 

 Thomson (possibly Marshall's Magellania sp.), but the writer did not find 

 Isis daciyla. Nor was he more successful in finding a glauconitic band of 

 greensand helow the limestone in which the corals and brachiopods were 

 said to occur. 



Park (1918, p. 83, footnote) says, "Mr. Uttley states {fide Dr. J. A. 

 Thomson) that the beds from which the collection was made lie above the 

 Waitaki stone, and are undoubtedly Awamoan " ; and on the next page 

 of his report (1918, p. 84) he writes, " On the palaeontological evidence the 

 so-called Waitaki stone at Otiake should be referred to the Awamoan 

 instead of the Upper Hutchinsonian." 



These statements, together with Marshall's view that the fossils came 

 from the limestone, need some comment. The fossils were collected from 

 the top of the section, with a considerable thickness of limestone below 

 them. The fossils are almost certainly Awamoan, but the writer considers 

 the limestone to be of Ototaran age. In the Waitaki Valley there is 

 a lack of brachiopods that characterize the Hutchinsonian greensands of 

 the Oamaru coastal district, particularly the brachiopod Pachymagas jmrki 

 (Hutt.), which, though not restricted to the Hutchinsonian, occurs abundantly 

 in a well-marked indurated glauconitic band, and marks the upper limit 

 of the Hutchinsonian. In the absence of a brachiopod fauna it would 

 scarcely be possible to differentiate this horizon, except perhaps, litho- 

 logically, even in the Oamaru district, and the Hutchinsonian and Awamoan 

 would, as far as the moUuscan faima is concerned, have to be considered 

 as part and parcel of the same series. (See McKay, 1877, p. 58 ; Hutton, 

 1887, p. 416). The writer believes that this is the case in the Waitaki 

 Valley, and that these fossiliferous beds at Otiake represent the Hutchin- 

 sonian and Awamoan hori"^ons of the coastal district. McKay (1882a, 

 p. 65) recognized the beds above the limestone at Wharekuri as Hutchin- 

 sonian, and these are at the same horizon as the Otiake beds. There is no 

 evidence to show that the Otekaike limestone is other than Ototaran in 

 age. The beds beneath the limestone are not seen, but on the right bank 

 of the Otiake River, where the limestone again crops out, greyish-green 

 foraminiferal sands, underlain by intensely dark greensands, crop out 

 farther up the river, dipping in the same direction as the limestone ; and 

 a short distance from the outcrop of greensands the quartz-grits also dip in 

 the same direction. 



(2.) Otekaike Special School. 



This is the locality (Geological Survey locality No. 481) where McKay 

 collected fossils in 1881. His collection, he states, was made from the 

 Otekaike limestone, which crops out on the left bank of the Otekaike 

 River, two -miles and half from the main road. Where exposed it contains 

 a few fossils, Cucullaea worthingtoni Hutt. (?) and Pachymagas huttoni 

 Thomson being the forms collected by the writer. McKay records ten 

 forms, eight of which. occur in the upper beds at Otiake. Traill's collection 

 (Geol. Surv. loc. 259) is also said to have come from the limestone. Seven 

 species were determined, and six occur in the upper beds at Otiake. 



These geologists evidently failed to find a highly fossiliferous horizon 

 in this localitv. On the sloping right bank of the creek, immediately 

 behind the school, the writer discovered, at the top of the limestone, two 

 glauconitic beds crowded with fossils, which are undoubtedly at the same 



