54 EEPORT— 1864. 



This consists of a series of conical hills, the outline of which is well marked in the 

 Pikes of Knock, Dufton, and Murton. The rocks which make up the Lower Silu- 

 rians in this portion of the North of England consist of sedimentary strata having 

 the mineral nature and fossils of the Skiddaw slate series of the Lake country ; ami 

 of these there are several anticlinal axes exposed. To the Skiddaw slates succeed 

 greenstones, porphyries, and ash-beds, of great thickness ; and these are the equi- 

 valents of rocks of the same natm'e which, in the Lake district, overlie the Skiddaw 

 slates. 



In the upper portion of this series, in the neighbourhood of Dufton, there is a 

 considerable development of dark-coloured Haggy slates, and these abound in 

 fossils ; the most abundant being Trimicleus conceutricus, Cali/mene Blumenhachii, 

 Beijrichia struiiffidata, Leptcena sericea, and Stenopora Jihrosa. These fossiliferous 

 flaggy slates are succeeded by poi-phyi-ies and ash-beds having upon them a lime- 

 stone, which is worked near Keisley. 



The mineral nature of this limestone shows it to possess a great affinity to the Bala 

 limestone, or its northern equivalent, the Coniston limestone ; and it is also very 

 nearly allied to the Irisli type of this series — that of the Chair of Kildare. Fossils 

 are seen abimdantly in this limestone of Keisley after it has weathered, and these 

 fossils, of which about twenty-eight species occur, still further connect the Keisley 

 limestone with the Bala or Coniston portion of the Caradoc group. 



Immediately south of Keisley, a great fault brings the Skiddaw slates in contact 

 with the representative of the Bala limestone. This fault, which has a down- 

 throw towards the N.N.W., must be at least 10,000 feet in extent, as no portion 

 of the greenstones, porphyries, ash-beds, or the intercalated fossiliferous flaggy 

 shales which intervene between the Skiddaw slates and the Keisley limestone, is 

 here seen. 



The Skiddaw slates brought in by this fault, on its S.S.E. side, form the Lower 

 Silurian area south of Keisley ; and in this portion of the district the dip of the 

 strata is eutu-ely reversed, being N.N.W. 



This Skiddaw slate, south of Keisley, forms Mm'ton Pike, the highest of the 

 conical hills in the area under consideration. 



Besides the great fault, which brings in contact the Keisley limestone and the 

 Skiddaw slates, and which is of an ancient date, as it does not affect the Old Bed 

 Sandstones or carboniferous strata imder which it passes eastwards, there is an- 

 other fault of a newer age having a N.N.W. and S.S.E. course, or being parallel to 

 the great Pennine Fault. This latter fault has cut through the carboniferous rocks 

 and their supporting Old Red Sandstones ; and on the west of the Pennine chain, 

 bordering tlie more northern portion of the Lower Silurian rocks, we have a de- 

 tached area of Old Red Sandstones and the succeeding carboniferous series, the 

 result of this fault, lying on its west side, and separated from the great mass of the 

 rocks of the Pennine chain by subsequent denudation. 



A Notice of the latest labours of the Imperial Geological Institute of the 

 Austrian Empire. By F. von^ Hatter. 



On the Geology of the Province of Otago, New Zealand. 

 By Dr. James Hector, F.G.S. 



In a letter to Sir R. Murchison, with maps, sections, and photographs of fossils. 

 Dr. Hector briefly described the geology of the Province of Otago. 



On the west rise mountains of metamorphic rock, cut' into by fiords at the coast, 

 and furrowed by long deep lakes on their eastern ranges. The base rocks are 

 foliated and twisted gneiss, granite-, syenite, and diorite ; and are flanked by horn- 

 blendic slates, micaceous and hornblendic gneiss, clay-slate and quartzite, with 

 felstone-dikes, sei-pentiue, and marble which support sandstones, shales and por- 

 phyritic conglomerates possibly of Lower Mesozoic age. Further to the east, be- 

 yond a great valley, grey and blue gold-bearing schists form a wide flattened boss, 

 and are seen to throw off the hornblendic slates and sandstones to the west, and 

 to the east. These old slaty rocks, often micaceous, quartzose, or chloritic, were 

 described, in some detail, as tomiing a triple series ; they bear ancient lake-deposits 



