436 Transactiom. — Geology. 



of being accounted for in another way, this theory has not been 

 generally accepted, and for a time seems to have been lost sight 

 of even by its author. 



This theory was intended to explain how the Onekakara and 

 Waihao greensands might appear as though they underlaid the 

 Ototara limestone and yet be younger than the limestones. In 

 1885 Hutton appears to have altered his opinion respecting the po- 

 sition of the Waihao greensands, as he includes them with other 

 beds in the Oamaru System, and as in position underlying the 

 Ototara limestone. However, having in the meantime examined 

 the Lower Waitaki Valley, the neighbourhood of Oamaru, 

 Kakanui, and Hampden, and the Waihao Valley, where the 

 greensands and limestones appear, he revives the fiord-island 

 theory as the only one consistent with the palasontological 

 evidence he brings forward. 



Selecting the Waihao Valley, as affording most convincing 

 proofs of the correctness of his theory, on the 6th of May, 1886, 

 he read before the Canterbury Philosophical Institute a paper, 

 in which he discusses the relative age of the Waihao Forks green- 

 sands and the limestones on the south side, opposite the Forks, 

 and further down the river. In thus selecting the lower basin 

 of the Waihao as the battle-ground within which the issues of 

 the dispute are to be decided, he promised himself one or two 

 advantages not afforded by other localities that might have been 

 chosen. Here the stratigraphy was less decisively in favour of 

 the oj)posing view than at the Kakahu, and the palteontological 

 evidence as much in his favour as at Hampden. 



In the Waitaki Valley there was no disputing the position of 

 the greensands in relation to the limestone members of the 

 Oamaru formation ; while at Mount Eoyal, and near Palmerston, 

 the greensands had afforded him no palaeontological evidences. 

 Hampden and Onekakara, from the absence of the limestone 

 there, failed to yield that measure of stratigraphical proof 

 which was requisite to set off the superior claims of paln9onto- 

 logy ; while at the Waihao, if v. Haast did not support his views, 

 at least he did not favour those of the Geological Survey. 



After examination, he decided that the stratigraphical e\d- 

 dence is obscure, but more in favour of his own theory than that 

 of V. Haast, or of the Geological Survey. He discredits the 

 evidence of sections he does not understand, and characterises 

 as impossible others that he did not see.* He totally ignores 

 v. Haast's description of the sequence, and is equally silent 

 as to the nature of the beds upon which the greensands rest. 

 He proves in nothmg the correspondence of the greensands with 



* The sections on the Waihao, at the south end of the Waimate Hills, 

 and that at Elephant Hill, are here alluded to. With reference to the last, 

 there is nothinK in Professor Hutton's " Note on the Geology of the Waihao 

 Valley " leading to the belief that the locality was visited by him. 



