TUTIRA 



knowledge and space. Certain main facts, however, can be accepted 

 on authority. The first is, that the bay of the province extending now 

 between Cape Kidnappers and the Mahia Peninsula has been, within a 

 comparatively recent geological period, high and dry ; the second, that 

 this vast " half-moon, this monstrous cantle " of land, has sunk, and that 

 simultaneously with its subsidence there has been a general fall of the 

 coastal area towards the east towards the ocean. 



In regard to local geology there has been no special inducement 

 for detailed study of the Hawke's Bay district. It is the land of the 



Golden Fleece, rich only in flocks and 

 herds. There exist in the province 

 neither oil, coal, iron, nor gold to stim- 

 ulate minute research. 



Tutira and the adjoining lands 

 have, I imagine, risen from the ocean 

 as plateaux of different heights. It is 



Sections of original plateaux. 



probable that during the subsidence of what is now the bay of the 

 province this formation was altered. At its termination sections of 

 the original plateaux lay on their edges inclining to the east : the 

 countryside had changed from an agglomeration of elevated plains to 

 a series of tilted terraces. Consentaneously the hill chains of the 

 run must have been created. In sympathy with the tilting process 

 there must have taken place an increase in the height of each of them ; 



as the one edge sank, the other rose, 

 until the run assumed approximately 

 its present outlines. 



Situated between two parallel 

 chains of hills, and containing a 

 centre of low-lying lands, the station 

 may in shape be compared to an 

 elongated trough. The western edge of this trough is the Maungaharuru 

 range, reaching the height of 3200 feet, and containing minor 

 eminences of over 2000 feet ; the eastern edge, the Newton range, 

 is considerably lower in elevation, its highest top not rising above 

 1400 or 1500 feet. The physical appearance of Tutira is in the main 

 that of the adjacent regions north and south, but the general geological 

 features noticeable on them are on Tutira marked in a peculiarly defi- 

 nite manner. One pattern only, sometimes sharp and sometimes 



Plateaux tilted. 



