94 president's address — section c. 



and many new forms have been described by Marshall and Suter 

 (1914-15), the latter having also revised much of ..ne older palseon- 

 tological work. 



This sequence of beds is the type for many developments of the 

 Notocene series of Otago and South Canterbury. Uttley (1920) has 

 traced it up the Waitaki River, and Gudex (l9l8) has shown that 

 it occurs also in the Pareora district, west of Timaru. Except 

 where volcanic action has been great, local unconformities are not 

 reco2;nisable. Dieconfcrmities may, however, be present. Thus, 

 in the Dunedin district, the highest beds are the Caversham sand- 

 stone, a porous, soft calcareo'us sandstcme, at the base of which is 

 a narrow glauconite band resting directly upon the top of a marl 

 formation, eupposedly " Oligocene," and perhaps tO' be classed 

 ill the Waiarekan stage. Grange (1921) considers that there is 

 some slight disconfcrmity between the marls and the overlying 

 sandstones. This last is not very fosjiliferous, only a score of 

 species having been recorded, but these indicate an age approxi- 

 mate'y that of thie "Miocene" Hutchinsonian stage, and all 

 forms present in the Caversham sandstone occur also' in the 

 Awamoan stage (cf. Thomson 1918). Southwards from here are 

 the Tertiary rocks stretching down into Upper Cretaceous or Eocene 

 coal -measure, as at Kaitangata and perhajis the margin of the 

 Waimea Plains, thus forming the coastal deposits abort Central 

 Otago. In the south-west there was evidently an extensive sheet 

 of Oamaruian beds, but of these little is yet knov;^n. Hector 

 (1891, p. xlv.) described some steeply dipping coal measuree in 

 Martin's Bay, north of Milford Sound. McKay (1896) described 

 the coal measures and over'ying marine beds in the is ands and 

 mainland at Puysegur Point. Park has recently traced them 

 up the Waiau Valley to Lake Te Anau, about which they were 

 originally described by Cox (1878). The recent work is not yet avail- 

 able, but Park confirms the observations of Cotton and the writer 

 that the dislocation observable in these Notocene beds, which lie 

 upon the ancient crystalline rocks, afford important information 

 in regard to the tectonic origin of that lake basin. As shown by 

 McKay (1879), the Tertiary Marine rocks extend further to the 

 ncvrth-east and are faulted into the crystalline rocks of Lake 

 Wakatipu. Park has extended his former list of lossils from these 

 beds (1918) and indicated that they are comparable with those of 

 Oamaru (see Fig. 9). 



On the north-west coast of the South Island very different con- 

 ditions occur. Here Morgan (1908, 1915) has recognised as lying 

 on the ancient greywackes, a basal coglomerate or breccia, con- 

 sidered to be a pluvial or talus-deposit, and overlain by produc- 

 tive coal measures, the chief source of that fuel m New Zealand. 

 These beds are followed by mudstone or claystone, which may 

 overlap on to the ancient greywackes. Out of twenty-three 



