362 Transactions. — Geology. 



denuded surface of the Palaeozoic sandstones and greywackes, 

 while no elastic rocks of younger date are found overlying 

 them. 



The scarcity of evidence relating to the age of these tuffs 

 is a noticeable feature of the geology of the Hauraki Peninsula, 

 and this circumstance is solely due to the almost entire 

 absence of members of the numerous fossiliferous formations 

 which in other parts of New Zealand render the geological 

 structure so varied, and very frequently so involved and com- 

 plicated. 



The only evidence bearing directly on the age of these 

 rocks, so far as known at present, is found at Waitete, situated 

 on the coast-line a few miles south of Cabbage Bay. Two 

 years ago, when making a reconnaissance geological survey of 

 that part of the coast, I discovered a small patch of the New 

 Zealand brown-coal measures, occupying an area not many 

 square chains in extent. They consisted of the following 

 strata, reading the section downwards : — 



1. Hard shelly limestone. 



2. Calcareous and marly sandstones. 



3. Ferruginous conglomerates. 



The conglomerates were about 200ft. thick, and rested 

 directly on the basement rocks, which at this point consisted 

 of blue- and red-banded slaty shales. The shelly limestone, 

 which was the highest and closing number of the series, 

 dipped away to the north-east, and a few chains back from the 

 beach disappeared below a great accumulation of volcanic 

 tuffs, breccias, and solid lava-flows of an andesitic character. 

 These rocks, so far as could be judged from physical charac- 

 ters and general appearance, were in every respect similar to 

 the gold-bearing tuffs and associated rocks in other parts of 

 the peninsula. 



On a subsequent occasion I traced these tuffs and breccias 

 without a break as far as Paparoa and Paul's Creek, and 

 thence southwards to the Tokatea Eange near Coromandel. 

 Another circumstance which tends to prove their identity with 

 the tuffs and andesites of the Thames and Coromandel is the 

 discovery in them of gold-bearing veins of quartz in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the limestone deposit. 



The Palaeozoic rocks on which the coal-measures rest are 

 in several places in the vicinity of Waitete intruded by mas- 

 sive dykes of igneous rock. It is a noteworthy fact that I was 

 unable to find, after a most careful examination, a single frag- 

 ment of igneous rock included among the materials composing 

 the conglomerates. This negative evidence is of great value 

 as tending to prove that these igneous intrusions took place 

 after the deposition of the Cretaceo-tertiary coal-beds. The 

 whole of the stratigraphical evidence obtainable at Waitete 



