TUTIRA ITS PROMINENT PHYSICAL FEATURES 3 



blurred, obtains, or has obtained, over the whole of the run. It is very 

 simple : every range, or portion of range, runs north and south, the 

 western face of every range is precipitous, the eastern face of every 

 range falls away gradually, the eastern face of every range is split 

 by fissures, the sides of every fissure are perpendicular. 



The native name of one of these ranges, Heru-o-Tureia, the comb 

 of Tureia, 1 admirably illustrates the general geological pattern of the 

 run the unbroken line of top, the western cliff, the fissured eastern 

 slope. It is typical on a great scale of every hill and mountain chain 

 on Tutira; indeed, if the signification of the name be firmly grasped, 

 the reader will hold in his mind an easy key to the physical outlines 

 of the run. The long, even, unbroken ridge itself is the " back " of the 

 titanic comb, the spurs running at right angles from it the "teeth," 

 the cracks which never penetrate the solid summit or " back," and 

 which, therefore, never completely bisect the range, the " interstices " 

 between the teeth. The likeness of these geological formations to vast 

 combs is still further heightened by the even, perpendicular edges of 

 the "teeth." 



These are the features of the comb system broadly outlined to let 

 the reader visualise its strange cleavage pattern. A modification must 

 now, however, be noted ; it is this, that although the fissures start at 

 right angles to the main range, their sides do not remain parallel. 

 These gaps, their shape at base more or less that of ah inverted horse- 

 shoe, widen as their distances from the back of the comb increase. 

 Another minor modification of the parallel hill chain system is the 

 presence here and there of narrow linking spurs that jut forth east 

 and west as if wedding the ranges to one another. Running at right 

 angles to the general north and south trend of the ranges, though 

 infrequent, they are well-marked features in the landscape. 



The breadth of the run can be traversed and its surface viewed 

 if, in imagination, the reader will take up his position on the western- 

 most rim of the trough to which the whole station has been compared, 

 and proceed thence eastwards towards the ocean. The Heru-o-Tureia 

 range marks the limit of limestone and divides the sandstones, con- 

 glomerates, and marls of the coastward belt from the more ancient 

 slates and ryolites of the interior. Moving from it eastwards we shall 



1 Tureia was sixth in descent from Tamatea, who reached New Zealand in the Takitimu, 

 one of the fastest of the canoes of the great heke or migration from Hawaiki. 



