338 Transactions. 



N. 70° E., and dip at an angle of 55° towards the west. The angle of 

 dip gets slightly steeper in the higher levels. The only sign of fossils that 

 we saw were fragments of oyster-shells occurring towards the top. 

 Their base rests on a highly eroded surface of the greywackes and slaty 

 shales. 



3. Light-coloured yellow and white sands with an estimated thickness of 

 150 ft. These are at times quite incoherent, but they are occasionally 

 cemented together. In their higher levels they are interstratified with 

 argillaceous bands, which become decidedly calcareous towards the top, 

 where there is a thin band of calcareous sandstone, succeeded by a bed 

 20 ft. in thickness of sandy marl. The actual contact of this with the 

 overlying limestones was not visible, owing to slip-accumulations. 



4. Limestone. — The limestone which follows conformably is pinkish 

 in colour, somewhat crystalline in character, flaggy in the lower parts, but 

 more compact and even and breaking into cuboidal blocks towards the 

 top. It contains numerous fragments of Mollusca and Echinoderms, but 

 it was found impossible to extract them. The thickness of this bed is at 

 least 150 ft. In the slip the strike is N. 70° E., and dip to the west at an 

 angle of from 60° to 70°. The limestone forms the top of Redcliff Hill, 

 but at the actual summit it is capped by a thin veneer of morainic 

 matter. 



5. Calcareous sandstone and shell-beds. — These lie conformably over the 

 limestone, and attain a thickness exceeding 50 ft., the actual amount being 

 uncertain. They become more sandy in their higher parts, and are inter- • 

 stratified with layers of concretionary sandstone. These contain well- 

 defined bands composed of shell-fragments, but it was difficult to get good 

 specimens for determination. The following genera and species were 

 recognized : Glycimeris globosa, G. laticostata, Cuccullaea alta, Chione 

 mesodesma, Crassatellites amplus, Mesodesviu australe, Turritella sp. ?, Ancilla 

 australis, Voluta sp. ?, Polinices gibbosus. Struthiolaria spinosa, Struthiolaria 

 sp. ?, Siphonalia mandarina. 



6. Morainic deposits. — These cover up the surface in many places to 

 a varying thickness. The material is invariably of greywacke, &c., from 

 the Mesozoic rocks, and consists chiefly of boulders and blocks of 

 large size. These beds lie unconformably on both the limestones and the 

 older rocks. 



This is the complete series as far as the locality is concerned, and, 

 with the exception of the underlying greywacke and the overlying glacial 

 material, it is conformable throughout. The age of the beds is deter- 

 mined with a certain amount of accuracy by the fossil-content of the 

 sandy layers overlying the limestones. The species identified show that 

 the fauna is of the ."5ame character as that occurring in the Pareora beds 

 of North and South Canterbury, which are usually assigned to the Upper 

 Miocene. 



No other exposure in the locality shows the series as completely as that 

 in the slip, since the general surface of the rocks in position is masked by 

 material detached from the limestones and by morainic matter. There 

 seems, however, to be no doubt that under the limestone scarp facing the 

 Rakaia the sands of the lower part of the series occur, but they are quite 

 hidden. It is probable, too, that they have formed a slipping surface, on 

 which the great block of limestone which overlooks the bed of the river 

 has been slightly canted forward (se(> fig. 2). 



