160 Transactions. 



on the footliills flanking the Awahokomo Creek on its northern bank. In 

 its upper portion, which is almost inaccessible, as the cliffs are precipitous, 

 two shell-bands were noticed, and, judging by talus strewing the slopes at 

 the base of the cliff, they are glauconitic. The writer examined the lime- 

 stone, and its main body appeared to be poorly fossiliferous. McKay (1882a, 

 p. 67) states that in the limestone " fossil shells are most abundant . . . 

 covering the whole ground with shells in a more or less perfect state of 

 preservation." As he comments on the fact that the limestone forms 

 vertical cliffs not less than 50 ft. in height, it is possible that the fossils 

 were collected from the slopes and had come from the shell-bands higher 

 in the section. 



Suter determined seven forms said by McKay to have come from the 

 Otekaike limestone, and five of these occur in the Otiake beds at Otiake, 

 which lie above the main body of limestone, while the two remaining fossils 

 are found in the Awamoan. McKay recognized the Hutchinson Quarry 

 beds at Wharekuri, and he described them as " loose dirty greensands full 

 of shells, followed by grey sands, and they follow the Otekaike limestone 

 conformably." In the list of fossils determined by Suter from these beds, 

 ten occur in the Otiake beds at Otaike, three occur in the Awamoan at 

 Oamaru, and one has not been reported elsewhere. The following note 

 was appended to the manuscript list of fossils, evidently written by one 

 of the staff of the Geological Survey: "According to McKay's MS., the 

 beds collected from form the higher part of the ridge south of the coal- 

 mine at Wharekuri." This means that the collection came from beds 

 lying immediately above the limestone, and these beds are undoubtedly at 

 the same horizon as the fossiliferous beds that occur at the top of the 

 section at Otiake, at Otekaike, and in bands at the top of the limestone 

 near the Awahokomo Creek. Although only fourteen species were deter- 

 mined by Suter, Hector stated that " altogether, about a hundred species 

 were collected from this horizon in the Wharekuri section " (1882, p. xxvii). 

 McKay himself reported the following forms [nom. mut.) : — 



Gucullaea alta (?) Sow. • I Polinices huttoni Iher. 



Dentalium solidum Hutt. j *Venericardia difficilis (Desh.) 



Limo'psis zitteli Iher. j Waldheimia triangulare Hutt. 



Pecten hochsteUeri Zitt. ' 



The brachiopod is evidently Pachymagas huttoni Thomson, and is said 

 by McKay to be very abundant, as it always is at the horizon of the Otiake 

 beds. At one locality on the ridge extending from Wharekuri to the Awa- 

 hokomo the writer found an outcrop of ferruginous micaceous quartz sands 

 at a higher elevation than the limestone. McKay writes that " in this 

 locality the Otekaike limestone passes upwards into the Hutchinson Quarry 

 greensands, which are here overlain by rusty quartzose gravels . . . not 

 unlike the rocks met with at the base of the Cretaceo-Tertiary series . . . 

 these quartzose gravels are followed by sandstones." The beds observed 

 by the writer appear to be conformable to the limestone, as the dip was 

 the same, but no junction was seen. It is in these beds that McKay 

 thought the Wharekuri coal occurred, and he correlates them with the 

 tilted beds there. The limestone of the ridge on the left bank of the 

 Awahokomo dips 10° in a direction N. 30° W. towards the Kurow Mountains. 



The quartz-grits and sandstones at the base of the series crop out on 

 both banks of the Awahokomo south of the limestone exposure, and 

 farther up the stream the greensands are seen dipping 30° westerly towards 



