president's address. 553 



course, be Cambrian instead of Pre-Cambrian, and cannot there- 

 fore at present be classed as Archsean. 



As shown on Sir James Hector's Section* the metamorphic 

 schists near Collingwood, at the north-west end of the South 

 Island, are strongly uncomformable to the overlying Lower Silu- 

 rian rocks. 



Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., in his excellent paper on the 

 Geology of New Zealand,! classes as Archaean the bulk of the 

 crystalline and foliated schists already referred to by Sir James 

 Hector, calling them the Manapoiiri System. The rocks consist 

 of " grey and red gneiss, garnet-bearing schist, hornblende schist, 

 mica schist, quartz schist, and occasionally granular limestone. 

 Scales of graphite have been found in the mica-schist at Dusky 

 Sound." Eastwards the Series is bounded in Otago by the great 

 Te Anau Fault, which has an immense downthrow to the east, and 

 strikes north and south. 



In the Riwaka Mountains Captain Hutton shows on his Section J 

 a strong unconformability between the rocks classed as Archaean 

 and those of the Aorere Series classed as Ordovician. 



With regard to the thickness of the Archaean rocks in Otago, 

 Captain Hutton states§ : — "We can only escape from the conclu- 

 sion that these rocks have a thickness of many miles by supposincy 

 either that the plane of foliation does not always coincide with 

 the original plane of bedding, or that a series of reverse folds 

 occur, neither of which has as yet been proved." 



I believe Captain Hutton has subsequently obtained evidence 

 which has led him to modify this opinion, and he now considers a 

 large portion, at all events, of these crystalline rocks to be 

 intrusive rocks with a superinduced foliation. 



* Loc. cit. p. 82. 

 + Geology of New Zealand. By Captain F. W. Hutton, F.G S., Professor 

 of Biology in the Canterbury College University of New Zealand. 

 Q.J.G.S. for May, 1885, pp. 194 and 198. 



% Loc. cit. p. 200. 

 § Loc. cit. p. 198. 



