OAMARU 65 



of the Australasians to appreciate the necessity of 

 paying for gentlemanly treatment. 



One fine morning, Shelley and I started out with a 

 party of ladies and gentlemen to visit Fern Glen, and 

 a very pleasant little picnic we had. We found the 

 English girls to be fine walkers, for at the end of the 

 day's ramble they showed no signs of fatigue. The 

 miniature waterfall at the top of the glen is completely 

 framed by a luxuriant growth of ferns, making an 

 exceedingly pretty picture. 



We ate our dinner in the forest, where the little green 

 parrots squeaked and chattered in the tree-tops, and at 

 dusk, loaded with trophies, we wended our way home- 

 ward. 



On the twentieth of February, we left Dunedin for 

 Oamaru, where we gave two courses of six lectures 

 each. One is impressed as he enters Oamaru with the 

 beauty and cleanliness of the town, as wooden struc- 

 tures are almost unknown. All the houses are built of 

 a handsome, cream-colored limestone which abounds in 

 that section. The stone is so soft when first taken 

 from the quarry that it can be cut with an ordinary 

 saw and chisel. On exposure to the air it hardens, and 

 enough lime is dissolved by the rain and crystallized 

 between the blocks to fill up the crevices, the whole 

 building becoming literally one piece. 



Fossil or petrified shells were very common at 

 Oamaru, and we found large numbers of them in the 



