668 Transactions. — Geology. 



deposit of nearly pure, coarse pumice, overtopped by a thin 

 coating of shingle, which passes towards the point into old sea- 

 beach deposits made up of sands, boulders, and a kind of im- 

 pure cemented limestone full of recent shells. The deposits, 

 wherever exposed, rest unconformably upon the underlying 

 beds, which are highly inclined towards the west and north- 

 west. The pumice and beach deposits are of varying thick- 

 ness, but in the exposed face of the hills opposite the native 

 church on the Kaiti they must be at least 130ft. in thickness, 

 and show bands of stratification as if laid down in a slowly- 

 subsiding water-area. Similar deposits cover the tops of all 

 the hills to the west and north-west of the Poverty Bay plain, 

 and they continue to top the hills and fill the valleys as terrace 

 deposits to the north-west beyond Ormond, in the direction of 

 the district known as Mangatu. All these deposits are of 

 fresh-water origin, and in some of the finer pumice beds beau- 

 tiful leaf specimens are met with. All the beds are very 

 porous, but they are of limited extent in their distribution, for, 

 although they can be traced over the larger portion of the 

 present basin of the Waipaoa Eiver, they are limited in other 

 directions, and form no area of accumulation of any extent. 

 They are not met with in the direction of Patutahi, although 

 the low hills near Mr. Sutherland's residence are capped with 

 a heavy silt-deposit, under which traces of shingle might be ex- 

 pected, followed by limestones similar to those to be met witk 

 at the Ormond quarry. The higher hills to the north, north- 

 west, and west are capped here and there by limestone, with 

 which most Gisborne residents are familiar, as it is used for 

 metalling the county and borough roads; and Mr. Oxenham, 

 of Makauri, also uses it for the manufacture of lime. This 

 limestone belongs to the same geological series as that at 

 Patutahi (lower and upper), which crops out on the road- 

 side as you proceed from the plain towards Waerenga-o-kuri. 

 The same limestone is met with at the waterfall between 

 Scott and Weatherhead's, and it strikes across the country 

 in a north-east direction, and eventually merges further on 

 into a fossiliferous sandstone. No limestones are met with 

 on the Kaiti or on the liills in the immediate vicinity of Gis- 

 borne, nor is there any trace of limestone on the hills in the 

 Murewai district, in the vicinity of Young Nick's Uead. 



Turning to the lower or underlymg rocks, the general 

 character of these can be seen in the exposures facing the bay 

 along the Kaiti Beach. The rocks are banded, being made up 

 of blue clays and soft thin sandstones interbedded and dipping 

 or sloping in the direction of the town. The clays wear 

 quicker than the thin bands of sandstone, and the latter break 

 away in slab-like masses as the clays wear down by the action 

 of the atmosphere. The thickness of the beds is very great. 



