524 Transactions. 



greywacke drift. The angular blocks appear to have been plucked from 

 the south end of the Whaleback. where they occur in situ, and carried to 

 their present place, a distance of six or eight miles. Exposures of this 

 glacial debris, but not the best, are seen on the coach-road soon after cross- 

 ing the Conway going southward. 



In the overdeepened portions of the glacial valley there occur consider- 

 able deposits of stratified sands and clays, in places containing seams of 

 impure lignite. These deposits were probably formed in the period of 

 fluviatile activity that everywhere throughout the South Island appears to 

 have followed the retreat of the Pleistocene glaciers. 



The Kaikoura Peninsula lies at the seaward end of the Waiau glacial 

 valley, the coiu'se of which is about north-east to south-west. 



Art. XLVL- — The Geology of the Kermadec Islands. 

 By W. Reginald B. Oliver. 



[Bead before the Philosophical Institute of Canterhury, 19th October, 1910.] 

 Plates XXIII-XXVI. 



The first account of the geology of the Kermadec Islands is contained in 

 a paper by Mr. S. Percy Smith, F.R.G.S., written after a short visit to 

 the group in 1887, in the Government steamer " Stella," for the purpose 

 of annexing the islands to the Colony of New Zealand (Smith, 1888). 

 Specimens of rocks collected by Mr. Smith were described bv Professor 

 A. P. W. Thomas, M.A., F.L.S." (1888, p. 311). Some general information 

 regarding the group is given in Mr. Smith's report on the Kermadec Islands 

 (Smith, 1887). The only other notes on the geology of the Kermadecs 

 that I am aware of are the descriptions by Mr. E. Speight, M.Sc, F.G.S., 

 of a few rocks collected by Professor Park on Macaulev and Sundav Islands 

 (Speight, 1896). 



As a member of the scientific expedition which was camped for ten 

 months on Sunday Island in 1908, among other things I made a collection 

 of rocks, and noted as well as I was able the geological structure of the 

 island. On the return journey to Auckland, Macauley Island. Curtis 

 Island, and French Rock were visited in turn, when an opportunity was 

 afforded of obtaining a few specimens from these islets. The collection of 

 rocks has been described by Mr. Speight, who in the same paper discusses 

 the geological evidence for the existence of a subtropical Pacific continent 

 (Speight, 1910). I propose now to describe the physical features and 

 structure of the various islands of the Kermadec Group, and, in the case 

 of Sunday Island, the order in which the different series of tuffs and lavas 

 were laid down and the island thus built up by volcanic action on a sub- 

 merged base. The names used here for the rocks are taken from Mr. 



