348 C. A. COTTON 



sented as following the Grey Marl, a formation which, in the classi- 

 fication adopted by Hector's Survey, was classed as Cretaceo- 

 Tertiary, i.e., older than Upper Eocene. Since the conglomerate 

 contains bowlders of fossiliferous rock, which McKay regarded as 

 derived from the Awatere beds (believed to be of Miocene age), 

 the reason for regarding it as unconformable to the underlying 

 series is apparent. 



It was recognized that the accumulation of the conglomerate 

 took place prior to the earth movements that gave rise to the 

 Kaikoura and Seaward Kaikoura ranges,' but one of the lines 

 of argument on which McKay relied to prove his contention was 

 undoubtedly a mistaken one. He argued that, since no beds had 

 been discovered in place in the neighborhood from which the 

 fossiliferous Tertiary blocks in the conglomerate could have been 

 derived, these bowlders had been transported across the site of 

 the Kaikoura Ranges, before their uplift, from a known outcrop 

 of similar rocks far to the southwest.^ 



Recently, however, Thomson^ has discovered a bed of marine, 

 fossiliferous, Tertiary sandstone, apparently interstratified between 

 two coarse bands of the conglomerate forming Deadman's Hill, 

 which is identical with the material of the blocks in the conglomerate 

 in that locality formerly regarded as exotic. The large bowlders, 

 moreover, in Deadman's Creek (or Shades Creek), the presence 

 of which has been noted by various observers, come in reality from 

 this outcrop of rock in place, and not, as has been supposed, from 

 the conglomerate. The writer has also examined the locality in 

 company with Dr. Thomson. The junction of the sandstone with 

 the underlying band of conglomerate is not clear, and there is a 

 bare possibility that the beds are separated by a fault (or thrust 

 plane). If this is so, the sandstone may be the. source of the 

 fossiliferous bowlders in the underlying as well as in the overlying 

 conglomerate beds. Whether this is the case or not, the dis- 

 covery indicates the danger of assuming that any of the constituents 



' Hector, op. cit., p. xxxvi; McKay, Geol. Surv. of N.Z., Rep. Geol. E.xpl. during 

 iSgo-gi, p. 95, 1892. 



^ A. McKay, op. cit. {1892), p. 4. 



3 J. Allan Thomson, N.Z. Geol. Surv., yth Ann. Rep., 1913, p. 123. 



