264 Transactions. — Geology. 



Art. XXXII. — On the Greensands of the Waihao Forks. 



By Professor F. W. Hutton, F.G.S. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 1st September, 1887.] 



In the last volume of " Transactions of the New Zealand 

 Institute" Mr. A. McKay has a paper on "The Waihao 

 Greensands, and their Eelation to the Ototara Limestone,"* 

 which is chiefly a criticism on a paper of mine in the same 

 volume called " Note on the Geology of the Waihao Valley in 

 South Canterbury."! I do not object in the least to criticism; 

 on the contrary, I think it to be the very breath of science, 

 without which no life would remain. Also, as a general rule, I 

 think it unnecessary to answer a criticism, believing that the 

 original paper and the critique on it are sufficient ; and that the 

 verdict should be left to others. But in the paper just men- 

 tioned, Mr. McKay has so far transgressed the rules of ordinary 

 courtesy that I cannot remain altogether silent ; for he has 

 accused me of deliberately omitting the names of certain species 

 from my list of fossils from the greensands of Waihao Forks, in 

 order to make the palaeontological evidence appear to prove these 

 beds to be of Miocene age, when in reality it did nothing of the 

 kind. Now, whatever may be my faults, I have never before 

 been accused of intentionally concealing or garbling the truth. 

 Indeed it would be easy for me to show that, over and over again, 

 I have made haste to publish corrections of my own mistakes so 

 soon as I found that I had been in error ; but if I were now to 

 allow this accusation of dishonesty to pass unnoticed, I could 

 never again expect scientific men to place any trust in my 

 statements. 



The following is the passage in Mr. McKay's paper to which 

 I refer : — " According to Hutton's list of fossils, the palpeonto- 

 logical evidence is to all appearances decisive. Sixteen species 

 of Mollusca are known— all of them said to have come from 

 the Waihao greensands : the collection of 18G7-68, named by 

 him in 187(5 ; and collections (of later date ?) now in the 

 Canterbury Museum, 8 more, making 21 in all. Twenty-four, 

 it would appear, then, are known to him, and in the Canterbury 

 Museum ; yet only 16 species are now cited by him. What 

 of the remaining 8 species ? They were sent by v. Haast to 

 the Otago Museum and named by Professor Hutton in 1876. 

 They are cited as fossils of the ' Waihao ' in the ' Geology of 

 Canterbury and Westland,' and now they are not ! What has 

 become of them ? Lost ? No ; for their record remains" (I.e., 

 p. 437). On this I will remark — 



*" Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. xix., pp. 434-440. 

 t I.e., pp. 430-433. 



