Pakk. — Marine Tertiaries of Otago and Canterbury . 505 



This partial distribution in horizontal extension is well 

 seen in the long line of horizontal limestone escarpment on 

 the south side of the Waitaki Valley between Black Point 

 and the Marawhenua, and also along the limestone crests of 

 Mount Donald and Mount Brown, in the Waipara district. 



The palaeontological evidence seems to be sufficiently 

 strong to connect the middle horizon of the Oamaru series, 

 comprising the Kakanui, Hutchinson Quarry, and Mount 

 Donald beds, with the Orakei Bay beds of the Waitematas of 

 Auckland. 



The basement beds or lower division of the Waitematas, as 

 exposed at Cape Eodney, Kawau Island, Motutapu Island, 

 and Papakura, contain a molluscous fauna which includes 

 many of the characteristic fossils of the Waihao horizon of 

 the Oamaru series. They contain, for example, such cha- 

 racteristic forms as Ostrea wuilerstorfi., Pectcn burnetii, P. 

 bccthami, Crassatellites avipla, Pseud amussium huttoni, Rhyn- 

 chonella nigricans, and should. I think, be correlated with the 

 Waihao horizon. 



The equivalent of the Waitaki Stone is absent in the Wai- 

 temata area, but a calcareous sandstone or limestone makes 

 its appearance further south in the Lower Waikato, Aotea, 

 Baglan, Pirongia, Waipa, Kawhia, Upper and Lower Mokau, 

 where it contains Meonia cratvfordi, Cirsotrema broivni, Pseud- 

 amussium huttoni, and MageUania novara, all characteristic 

 of the Oamaru Stone horizon. 



The sandstones lying conformably below the Waipa lime- 

 stone, resting on the coal-measures, contain Cirsotrema browni, 

 Calyptraa calyptrceformis, Gassidaria senex, Pseudamussium 

 huttoni, Pecten fischeri, CuculUea alta, Lucina divaricata, and 

 Dentalium Icevis, all of which are found in the Waihao beds 

 above the coal. 



Age of Waipara Series. 



Sir Julius von Haast :;: states that he found the impressions 

 of dicotyledonous plants, including Fagus ninmssiana, Phyl- 

 lites eucalyptroides, Loranthophyllum dubium, Griselina myti- 

 folia, in the lowest part of this series at Waipara and Mal- 

 vern Hills. 



If these species, and the relations of the plant beds to the 

 saurian beds, have been accurately determined, we have a 

 condition of things resembling that of the Laramie (lignitic) 

 series of the Kocky Mountains in the United States, which is 

 referred by American geologists to the Upper Cretaceous. 



* Haast, " Geology of Canterbury and Westland," Christchurch, 1879, 

 p. 291. 



