Paek. — The Loicer Mesozoic Rocks of New Zealand. 399 



classification of the Geological Survey Sir James Hector once 

 again referred it to the Lower Trias.* 



Captain Hutton, in his latest classification of New Zealand 

 formations, includes the whole of the Trias and Permian rocks 

 of the Geological Survey in his Wairoa series, which is tlius 

 the equivalent of the Shaw's Bay series of Lindsay. 



The Wairoa series of Captain Hutton has a very different 

 meaning to the present Wairoa series of the Geological 

 Survey, and therefore to avoid the confusion that might arise 

 from the use of that name I have thought it advisable to 

 discard it for Lindsay's original name, " Shaw's Bay series," 

 which not only possesses the right of priority, but can claim 

 to take its name from a place where the development of the 

 Trias is as perfect as anywhere in New Zealand, and free from 

 faulting, folding, and tectonic disturbance that might lead to 

 doubtful interpretations of the succession and relations of the 

 different marine horizons. 



Age. 



The marine beds at the base of the Nugget Point section, 

 embracing the Spiriferina beds (the Froductus formation of 

 McKay), have since 1878 been referred by the Geological 

 Survey to the Permian Kaihiku series, but no stratigraphical 

 or palaeontological evidence has been adduced to support; this 

 view. On the contrary, it has been shown that the Kaihiku 

 series always forms a part of the Triassic succession of 

 strata ; and Sir James Hector, when discussing the age of the 

 Kaihiku series, says, " The occurrence of these saurian 

 remains " [Eosatirns of March] , " together with the survival of 

 many Permian forms into the Wairoa, and even the Otapiri, 

 series, and the absence of true spirifers, Produchis, and other 

 usual Palaeozoic elements of a Permian fauna, would seem to 

 connect the Kaihiku series rather with the Mesozoic than the 

 Palaeozoic formations of New Zealand."! 



In Nelson, Otago, and Southland the Sj^itiferina beds are 

 followed by the Halohia (Daonella) lomvieli beds, and in the 

 European alpine Trias this is one of the distinctive forms of 

 the lowest division of the Upper Trias. 



In 1869 Mojsisovics arranged the Trias of North and 

 South Tyrol Alps so as to place the nodular limestone with 

 Halohia lomvieli at the base of his Noric division, but we have 

 it on the authority of Zittel that the stratigraphical researches 

 of Hauer, Eichthofen, and Giimbel had shown that this ar- 

 rangement arose from a series of stratigraphical blunders on 

 the part of Mojsisovics. 



* Reps. Geol. Expl., 1890-91, p. 121, 



t Reps. Geol. Expl., 1878-79, pp. 11 and 12. 



