president's address — SECTION c. 61 



selected collections of fossils to si>ecialists for their investigations. 

 The Mesozoic plants were submitted to the late Dr. Arber, and in 

 company with Dr. Thomson, Dr. Trechmann, a visiting British 

 palaeontologist, obtained fossils once more from McKay's collecting 

 grounds in the Maitai rocks of Nelson, and later visited and care- 

 fully collected from the localities for Mesoizoic marine fossils in 

 several districts, and undertook the examination of those obtained 

 by McKay in the collection of the Geological Survey. The very 

 valuable results of the study of the Maitai and Triassic fauna i^ 

 now available, and that of the Jurassic is shortly to appear. 

 E'roadly speaking, the old subdivisions erected by the careful field- 

 wo'rk of Cox and McKay over forty years ago, and their palseon- 

 tc'logical correlation of strata in various parts of New Zealand, 

 hold good, thoiugh comparison with faunas in other parts of the 

 world shows that the precise ages assigned to the subdivisions 

 thus recognised may now be corrected. The fauna is typically of 

 a Tethyan circumpacific character, and there is no reason why any 

 of the New Zealand forms should be regarded as local isolated 

 survivals from Palaeozoic times, nor is there any premature ap- 

 pearance of truly Jurassic forms (Trechmann 1918).* This very 

 satisfactory conclusion is much strengthened by the comparison 

 of the succession of faunal zones in New Zealand with that in New 

 Caledonia, as given by Piroutetf (1917). (See Table III.) We 

 may anticipate further interesting information from Dr. Trech- 

 mann's study of the Jurassic fossils, of the results of which he has 

 already given a preliminary statement. 



Several geologists have divided the sequence of rocks we have 

 been discussing into two series, the Maitai (with which the Te Anau 

 rocks are included), forming the lower portion, and the Ilokonui 

 Series forming the Mesozoic portion. This course is also followed 

 in the sequel, except that the Annelid beds of the upper portion 

 of the Maitai series are placed in the Lower Triassic. 



The base of the Maitai series is not seeai clearly, unless it should 

 prove that the Haupiri volcanic rocks are really (as is here as- 

 sumed tentatively) a portion of the same group of rocks as those 

 known as the Te Anau breccias, and are correctly considereid to 

 underlie conformably the Maitai rocks. The Haupiri rocks consist 

 of a series of greywackes, argillites, and ccngloanerates, associated 

 with more or less epidotised basic volcanic rocks. Pebbles of Aorere 

 rocks occur in the conglomerate (Bell 1907). Near Nelson, there 

 is a group of altered basalts and tuffs apparently intercalated in 



* A further investigation has been made by Professor Otto Wilckens of Professor 

 Park's collection of Triassic fossils, and the manuscript has now been received by the 

 Geological Survey, by whom it will be published as a palseontological ViuUctin. I under- 

 stand that the results of this work are. in general, confirmatory of those obtained by 

 r)T. Trechmann, and that some inteiesting new fonns have been recognised. Wilckens 

 holds (1920, p. sot)) the Triassic fauna of New Zealand is closely allied to that of New 

 Caledonia only, with which it has in common several peculiar features, " so that one 

 may correctly speak of a Maorian province in the Triassic sea." 



t The similarity between the Triassic fossils of New Zealand and New Caledonia 

 was pointed out by Marshall in 1911. 



