Hill. — On tJic Kidnapper and Poind Conglomerates. 347 



partment, as seen at Waipukurau, Waipawa, Kaikoia, Pa- 

 tangata, are simply the remnants of the transitional period 

 linking the present plane of denudation with the one imme- 

 diately preceding it. 



5. The river-system that preceded the present one was 

 towards the south-west and south-east ; the watershed was yet 

 further to the west and north-west than the Ruahine ^loun- 

 tains. 



6. The accumulation of shingle-deposits at Norsewood 

 from the westward, consequent on the elevation of the Ruahine 

 and supplementary ranges, threw a barrier across the drain- 

 age-area to the south-west, and the limestones to the east- 

 ward of what is now the Ruataniwha Plain were broken 

 through. 



7. Renmauts of the old river-beds, as they broke through 

 the limestones, are to be found in the terrace-gravels or trans- 

 itional gravels, as explained in No. 4. 



Hence it will be observed that all the shingle, conglomerates, 

 pumice, lignite, and attendant clays found throughout the 

 district are classed by me as belonging to two distinct periods 

 only — \\z., a recent one, still incomplete, with its transitional 

 deposits of high-level gi-avels ; and one corresponding to the 

 Kidnapper pumice and conglomerate deposits, and which I 

 ventured some time ago to place as the youngest of the Plio- 

 cene deposits, and as closing the Tertiary period. 



Now, in order to show clearly and ftilly the wide divergence 

 between Mr. McKay's classification and my own, and between 

 his present classification and a former one, I shall make 

 extracts from his reports, and then summarize those extracts, 

 as representing the classified arrangement of the rocks in this 

 district by the Geological Department. 



1 On page 192 of the Geological Reports, 1886-87, appears 

 the following, respecting the Kidnapper beds : "From Cape 

 Kidnappers westward along the south shore of Hawke's Bay 

 Tertiary beds .... continue to the first point inside the 



cape, and are there overlain by Te Aute limestone 



Superimposed on these, but unconformahlc to the limestones, 

 a great thickness of conglomerates, sands, and clays succeeds. 

 . . . As these beds follow the Te Aute limestone *. . . 

 I had formerly supposed them to succeed these limestones con- 

 formably, and to be the same as the Esk and Bangimapapa 

 conglomerates and _pz/?/i/cc-sands which underlie the Petane 

 clays : but the past year's work has shown that similar gravels 

 on the north bank of the Tutaekuri River, near Taradale, rest 

 on a denuded sm-face of the Petane beds, and I therefore con- 

 sider them to be of Pleistocene date." 



2. Page 193, Scinde Island : " Notwithstanding this change 

 of the name, I refer all the beds in Scinde Island to the Wai- 



