History of New Zealand. 245 
of the land masses of the South Island and the southern part of the 
North Island, an inference that has apparently been drawn by Gregory, 
who includes the coasts of Central New Zealand with those of his 
‘primary Pacific type’’?. Such an inference is probably not true 
for any part of the coast of New Zealand. In the southern part of 
the North Island—in the vicinity of Wellington, for example—the 
discordance of the trend of the folds with that of the shore-line is 
shown clearly by the en echelon arrangement of the ridges which may 
be noted from any high point of view, ridge after ridge and valley 
after valley of the subsequent features developed by erosion on these 
strata being obliquely truncated by the western coast. The trend of 
the ridges, corresponding with the general direction of the strike 
of the rocks, is only 10° to 15° east of north, while that of the coast 
is north-east, parallel with the elongation both of the mountainous 
axis of the island and of the land mass as a whole. Some of the 
north-east trending coasts of Central New Zealand have recently been 
described by the writer as resulting from faulting of comparatively 
modern date.? 
In the South Island there appears to be by no means a close 
agreement between the trend of the major features and that of the 
folds of the oldermass. Scattered observation of the strike made by 
the writer in the north-east of the island show that it is very variable, 
but the average trend appears to be the west of north. Observations 
by McKay in the same district also indicate great variability,® and 
both McKay * and Hutton ® have noted a more or less definite dome 
and basin structure. In the main ranges of the Southern Alps the 
average strike of the rocks was noted by Dobson to be N. 22° E. 
(fide Haast). Haast ® and later observers, particularly Morgan” and 
Speight,® record great variability in that area also. In the study of 
the major relief features of New Zealand the trend of the Mesozoic 
folds may be almost entirely disregarded, for these features have 
been blocked out by much later orogenic movements, and the deformed 
strata of the oldermass, when affected by the latter movements, have 
generally behaved like resistant massive rocks. 
1 J. W. Gregory, ‘‘ The Structural and Petrographic Classification of Coast 
Types © : : Scientia, vol. xi, pp. 36-63, 1912. 
2 ** Fault Coasts in New Zealand ’’: Geog. Rev., vol. i, pp. 20-47, 1916. 
> A. McKay, ‘‘On the Geology of the East Part of Marlborough, Cole 
Mus. and Geol. Surv. N.Z., Rep. Geol. Expl., 1885, pp. 27-136, 1886; 
“On the Geology of Marlborough and South-East Nelson,” ibid., 1888-9, 
pp. 85-185, 1890. 
4 F. W. Hutton, ‘‘ Report on the Geology of the North-East Portion of the 
South Island ’’: Col. Mus. and Geol. Surv. N.Z., Rep. Geol. Expl., 1873-4, 
pp. 27-58, 1877 (p. 32). 
° A. McKay, ‘‘On the Older Sedimentary Rocks of Ashley and Amuri 
Counties’’: Col. Mus. and Geol. Surv. N.Z., Rep. Geol. Expl., 1879-80, 
PP. 83-107, 1881 (p. 85). 
® J. von Haast, Geology of the Provinces of Canterbury and Westland, 
Christchurch, 1879. 
eG: Morgan, “The GUD ey. of the Mikonui Subdivision, North West- 
land,’’? N.Z. Geol. Surv., Bull. 6, 1908; ‘‘ A Note on the Structure of the 
Southern Alps,”’ Trans. N.Z. nae "vol. xliii, pp. 275-8 (p. 277), 1911. 
8 R. Speight, ‘‘ The Mount Arrowsmith District : Physiography ’’: Trans. 
N.Z. Inst., vol. xliii, pp. 317-42 (p. 319), 1911. 
