840 Transactions. — Geology. 



it is much less than the difference between the upper beds and 

 the Petane series. The number of species from the upper sandy 

 beds is 156, of which 72 per cent, are recent; while of the 133 

 species from the blue clay, 77 per cent, are recent. Evidently 

 we cannot disconnect the blue clay from the upper beds. 



On the sea coast at Patea, south of the mouth of the river, 

 blue clay with fossils passes up gradually into a blue micaceous 

 sandy clay, apparently unfossiliferous. Upon this lies about 

 12 feet of yellow sand ; then cemented gravel 4 feet thick, 

 followed by gray sands, and then red and yellow sands. The 

 upper beds form the cliff, and not being very accessible, I did 

 not examine them closely, but I could find no fossils in the 

 tumbled blocks. The sequence is remarkably like that at Wan- 

 ganui. The yellow sand is distinctly separated from the blue 

 micaceous clay upon which it rests, but without any appearance 

 of unconformity. The number of species obtained from the blue 

 clay is 26, of which 77 per cent, are recent. Three species of 

 Pareora shells, not known from any other part of the Wanganui 

 system, have been found in the blue clay at Patea. They are 

 Oliva neozelanica, Stmthiolaria cingulata, and a species of Cu- 

 callaa (fragments). 



On the left bank of the Wanganui River, about four miles 

 above the town, a very good section is seen at Kaimatera Cliff ; 

 but the beds here differ much from those at Putiki Point. The 

 lowest beds seen are a series of sands and silts (PL XIII., 

 fig. 3, a), without fossils. These are overlain, apparently 

 unconformably, by a bed of sand with shells and numerous 

 small fragments of pumice. This is followed by a thick series 

 of sands much current-bedded (b) ; this again by a loosely 

 cemented gravel-bed (c). Over this comes another bed of sand 

 with fossils ; the whole being covered unconformably by un- 

 fossiliferous silt and gravel (d), as at Wanganui. These beds, 

 b and c, may be called the Kaimatera beds. We obtained, 

 in a few hours, 47 species of shells from these sands, 44 of 

 which, or 93 per cent., were recent. The three supposed 

 extinct species are Trophon expansus, Trochita uifiata, and 

 Eisella melanostoma. Of these, the two first are closely allied 

 to living species, and the third is abundant in Australia 

 and Tasmania ; consequently, I think that these beds are of 

 pleistocene age, and should be kept out of the Wanganui system. 

 Whether the apparent unconformity between a and b is a real 

 one or not I cannot say, as the upper beds are much current- 

 bedded, and the exposed section is two short to place much 

 dependence on. 



Hawke's Bay District. 



Dr. Hector was the first to report on this district. He 

 described the tertiary rocks from the Upper Mohaka to Petane, 



