Park. — The Louver Mesozoic Bocks of New Zealand. 401 



The Catlin's Eiver series of Hector was interpolated in 

 Cox's classification, being placed sometimes above and some- 

 times below the Bastion series. 



In my revision of the classification adopted by Cox in 1878 

 for the formations in Southland, I showed that the Mataura 

 series and Flag Hill series referred to the same group of beds,"''' 

 and, after an examination of Catlin's district, I am of the 

 opinion that the beds included in the Catlin's Eiver series of 

 Hector will be found to belong to the Mataura series of Cox's 

 classification. 



The beds included in the Mataura series from the south 

 headland of Shaw Bay to False Island exhibit a thickness of 

 not less than 13,000 ft. In the upper Eangitata their thickness 

 probably exceeds 30,000 ft. In these localities they are devoid 

 of all trace of organic remains, excepting doubtful worm-trails 

 in the Clyde Valley beds, and indistinct plant-remains and 

 three thin marine zones between Sandy Bay and Cannibal 

 Bay. The lithological character of the beds tends to show 

 that thev were of estuarine origin. The most characteristic 

 genus in the Cannibal Bay beds is Inoceravms, which occurs 

 in the two highest zones. 



The beds grouped in this series in Nelson contain an 

 Inoceramus zone about 100 ft. above the Triassic limestone, 

 also a band of fissile slaty shale crowded with supposed worm- 

 trails. The total thickness of the strata exposed on the flanks 

 of Dun Mountain is about 25,000 ft. 



In the Geological Survey classification the strata included 

 in the Mataura series are subdivided, as we have seen, into 

 five different groups or series. Three, and probably more, of 

 these series overlap each other, and until more definite infor- 

 mation is available I think it would be unwise to perpetuate a 

 multiplication of place-names that at present have no mean- 

 ing, and are useless for purposes of correlation. 



Belationship to Underlying Strata. 

 In 1886 I showed that the Mataura series and Flag Hill 

 series of Cox referred to the same group of beds.t At the 

 same time I showed that the Mataura plant beds at Mataura 

 Falls followed the Upper Trias granite-conglomerate (2 ft.) and 

 sandstones of Ship Cove conformably, and were underlain by 

 a marine horizon containing Belcmnites, Ostrea, Pecten, Phola- 

 domya, &c. In dark-blue slaty shales overlying the shell bed I 

 found what I then identified as Pecopteris grandis, probably 

 the Pecopteris 2)roxima of Ettinghausen ; Asplenites, probably 

 Aspleniura hochstetteri, Ettings. ; two species of Taniopteris, 



* Reps. Geol. Expl., 1886-87, p. 146. 

 f hoc. cit., p. 146. 



26— Trans. 



