McKay. — On the Waihao Greensands. 439 



North of Aruo railway- station the reading of a similar 

 sequence in the same relation of the beds to each other is 

 unavoidable ; and the same occurs in the west branch of the 

 Waihao, above the road to Pudding Hill station ; and evidence 

 can scarcely have been looked for by those who say there is 

 little evidence to be found, and that little not of a decisive 

 character. No stratigraphy could be plainer than in some of 

 the sections, and the evidence of those that are less clear 

 supports, as far as it goes, that which the others exhibit. 



Beyond all question, the greensands underlie the "Waihao 

 limestone : and as explanations of the contrary view, islands and 

 fiords without number, crush, faults, contortions, and, in short, 

 all that might render the geology of a district complicated 

 and obscm-e, are invoked in vain. Not merely do the sections 

 specially examined show this ; the general structure of this 

 district, and that of all Southern Canterbury and North-Eastern 

 Otago, points to the same conclusion ; and it is rare, almost 

 never, that the Pareora rocks rest on other beds than those of 

 Upper Eocene or Cretaceo-tertiary age. Sir J. v. Haast, in 

 " The Geology of Canterbury and Westland," points out no 

 instance of their doing so, but says : " The strata belonging to 

 this series lie either conformably upon the Oamaru formation, 

 or, what is still more usual, unconformably upon it." 



I might here stop, and only ask the palaeontologists to bend 

 their pliant facts to conformity with the stratigraphical facts ; 

 and would have done so, but that I may be expected to say 

 something respecting the nine species of Mollusca that, coming 

 from the Waihao greensands, are said to occur only in Pareora 

 or younger beds. The rest are acknowledged to be fossils of 

 the Oamaru formation. The following is a list of the nine 

 species referred to : — 



1. Siphonalia nodosa, Martyn. 



2. AncUlaria australis, Sowb. 



3. Plewotoma fusiformis, Hutton. 



4. Plem-otoma buchanani, Hutton. 



5. Pleurotoma awamoaensis, Hutton. 



6. Clathurella hamiltoni, Hutton. 



7. Vohita cornigata, Hutton. 



8. Natica suturalis, Hutton. 

 ^. Leda fastidiosa, Adams. 



1. Siphonalia nodosa, or a form as like Martyn's species as 

 that which from the Waihao receives the name, I collected from 

 the Whaingaroa clay, Kaglan, at the time Mr. Cox's first exami- 

 nation of these beds was made. This is, therefore, a fossil of 

 the Oamaru formation of Hutton. 



2. AncUlaria australis. — All the specimens from the Waihao 

 green sand that could possibly be referred to this species, agree 



