PRESIDENTS ADDRESS — SECTION C. 6^ 



teirestial deposits ai*e, therefcre, interstratified, the latter predomi- 

 nating in the upper portion of the series. Over fifty species of 

 marine molluscs have been provisionally det€irniiiied in these rocks 

 by Hector. These are now under examination by Dr. Trechmann 

 (1917), who has already indicated the presence of a Liassic, and 

 possibly Bajcccian, fauna in the beds which immediately overlie 

 the Rhaetic rocks of the Hokonui hills. Elsewhere the Middle 

 Jurassic beds are followed by zones which may range as high as the 

 Tithonian, a stage which is transitional into the Ci'etaceous. 

 Henderson has found a great thickness of Jurassic strata overlying 

 the Rhaetic beds in the Huutly and M( kau districts, extending up 

 to the Tithonian rocks of Kawhia.*. According to a private 

 communication Dr. Trechmann is of the opinion that most of the 

 forms are related to Malayan or Himalayan types. The older 

 detenninations of Hector indicate the presence of various fo'rms of 

 ammonites and belemnites, AuceUa, Triffonia, Inoctramus, Lima, 

 l'h()lod)/)iu, Floiromi/a, FateUa, S/jiriferina, and Clavir/era. In 

 the only region in which the determination of the fossils has been 

 yet carried out on modern lines, namely, in the uppermost 

 (Tithonian) marine beds at Kawhia, Boehm (1911) has found, in 

 addition to the previously recognised oircumpacific types of 

 AuceUa, Litna, I/tovcrannrs, and FhijJhjccra.^ (allied to a Malayan 

 type) a Strehlites and Feri.^phiiwfes, and has concluded that 

 Amvionites novozealandicus, of Hauer, is a species of HopUtes 

 {Berrittsella), a genus very characteristic of the top of the 

 Jurassic. On the other side of the island. Upper Jurassic beds, 

 with Inoceramvm, occur in the Corcmandel Peninsula (Thomas, 

 1907). 



The Jurassic beds belonging to the Lower and Middle division 

 are widely deveLjped in the regions south of the Hckonui Range, 

 and there lie in gently undulating folds and appear to have been 

 transgre-sive across the ccntinental block of Southland. They 

 are much more steeply folded in the foothifls of the Southern 

 Alps throughcait the Province ol Canterbury, and again in the 

 regions of South Auckland and Korth Taranaki, where the Upper 

 Jiirassic beds are also stee})ly folded, as also in Ccromandel. Here, 

 too, and down the eastern side of the North Island are beds which 

 are transitional into the lowest Cretaceous series. With these 

 we may perhaps group the fossiliferous beds of Kawhia, men- 

 tioned above; those of Waikato Heads desci-ibed by Ccx (1877), 

 which may, however, be slightly higher (file Mr. Morgan); the 

 Inoceraniu.'^ Iceds. of the Te Kuiti district (Henderson, 1918); and 

 those of the Awaiiui district, north of Gisborne (McKay, 1874). 

 Similar beds again occur in large developments along the east 

 coast, south from Cape Kidnappers. Mr. Morgan (1915) has 

 classed theee as the "East Coast Series,'^ and remarks that they 

 consist of conglomerates, sandstones, and dark shale?, which in 



• Verbal communication. 



