president's ADDREiS — SECTION C. 77 



Attention must be drawn, however, to' the diversity in the 

 character of these two unilateral ranges. We have supported 

 Marshall's view that the Otago schists are the dynamically meta- 

 morphosed portions of the (Permian and) Mesozoic sedime^nts, sug- 

 gesting that they form recumbent folds along the margin of which 

 runs the sharp but approximately symmetrical anticline of the 

 Hokonui Hills, beyond which are the gently undulating Mesozoic 

 rocks of eastern Southland, protected from plication by an under- 

 lying basement-complex of ancient folded rocks, fragments of 

 which appear in the Bluff and Stewart Island, unless we may re- 

 gard these as forming with the Fiordland arc, a range folded 

 simultaneously with the folding in Central Otago, while eastern 

 Southland remained as a resistant unfolded block between the two 

 arcuate ranges. In either case, the Hokonui Hills appear as a 

 forefold in front of the main folds of Central Otago resembling 

 in some d agree the Parma range of forefolding, lying between the 

 highly folded and metamorphosed Palaeozoic rocks of the Ural 

 Mountains, and their undisturbed equivalents on the Russian 

 platform (Suess, Vol. I., 504). No plutonic intrusions, except 

 one cr two narrow sills of serpentine, are associated with the 

 schists of Otago, however, and the absence of any marginal fault- 

 ing, or evidence of such faulting, may be explained in part by 

 the paralMism. of the Mesozoic folding with the grain of the 

 basement rock. 



West of lake Wakatipu the conditions are altered. The outer 

 portion of the great arcuate folds is pressed against the northern 

 portion of the crystalline comp'^ex of. Fiordland. This region, though 

 very difficult of access, seems to be one of the most interesting in 

 the Dominion, our knowledge of it having been gained under great . 

 difficulties by Hector (1866, 1891), Cox (1878), McKay (1879), 

 and Park (1886). The region is very rugged and c:mplex, b'^t, 

 generalizing, it would seem as if the outer marg:n of the folds 

 showed a westward decrease in metamorphism frorn the schistose 

 rocks east of Lake Wakatipu, to the noimal, rarely fossiliferous 

 greywackes and sandstone near the Hcllyf ord River, by I ake 

 Harris, in which Hector found fossils termed Permian by him, 

 but which hci compared with the fossils of Nugget Point, which 

 we now know to be Uppeir Triassic. Adiacent to these is the 

 Maitai limestone noted bv McKay, in which Park ha-, recently 

 observed some fossils, Sjiirijcra, &c., which he compares with 

 those of th-^ Maitai limestone near Nelson, considered Permian 

 herein. With thess, and extending" south into the Gre'^nstone 

 River, arei the basic Te Anau breccias. West again of these are 

 the annelid -bearing greywackes of the Enjlinton and Hollyford 

 Valbvs, which according to the observations of Prof<=ssor Park 

 and Mcir, are invad'-d by the diorites which form the nortliem 

 extremitv cf the plutoric complex of Fiordland. In a fault- 

 line in the Maitai and Te Anau rocks, or between these and the 



1084.— 9 



