III. — GEOLOGY. 



Art. LVI. — On the Hatches Bay Pleistocene Beds and the 



Glacial Period. 



By H. Hill, F.G.S. 



[Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 9th July and 



12th November, 1894.1 



Plates XLIII. and XLIV. 



Part I. 



At the upper end of Sturm's Gully, in the Town of Napier, 

 and about 200ft. above sea-level, is a quarry that was opened 

 several years ago by the contractors who are engaged in the 

 construction of an artificial breakwater for the Port of Napier. 

 The area known as Scinde Island on the maps, and on which 

 the quarry is situated, is composed of limestones about the age 

 of which much difference of opinion has been expressed. The 

 limestones consist of an upper and a lower series, separated by 

 fossiliferous grey and blue marls of varying material and thick- 

 ness. In places the upper limestone has disappeared ; in 

 others i-t remains as large indurated blocks with a curiously 

 smooth and rounded surface, and pitted here and there with 

 holes which are filled with a brown mud-like material. This 

 rounded and smooth surface is only noticed after the over- 

 lying beds of loessic clay and soil have been cleared away, 

 when the smooth and worn appearance of the limestone at 

 once attracts attention. The bed immediately overlying the 

 limestone, and which replaces it over a portion of the island, 

 is a brown mud-clay, with a certain admixture of pumice and 

 scoriaceous material, containing here and there small grits of 

 sandstone. This deposit follows the contour of the hills, and 

 has no sign of stratification. It thickens out very much in 

 places, where it appears to possess more of the characteristics 

 of true clay, and is so used on the soutb side of the hills, 

 where brick-making is largely carried on. There is no trace 

 of animal life and but little of vegetable life in the bed, a 

 single specimen of raupo (Typha angustifolia) being the only 

 plant I have discovered. A careful inspection of the material, 

 however, leads me to the opinion that the mud-clay has been 



