British Association. 23a 
the changes necessitated by these discoveries in the geological map 
of the Colony. Yet Dr. Rubidge considered this correction of slight 
importance in comparison with the principle which led him to. 
establish it as a truth. This principle was the change of rocks of 
different ages into continuous quartzites. This change, he gave 
reasons for thinking, was due to molecular action with the aid of 
water, and was chiefly superficial. 
ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE Provincr oF Oraco, New Zuatanp. By Dr. Jamzs 
Hector, F.G.S. 
N a letter to Sir R. Murchison, with maps, sections, and photo- 
* graphs of fossils, Dr. Hector briefly described the geology of 
the Province of Otago. On the west rise mountains of metamorphic 
rocks, 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 (m,l,k); and are 
flanked by hornblendic slates, micaceous and hornblendic gneiss, 
clay-slate, and quartzite, with felstone-dykes, serpentine, and marble 
(h), which support sandstones, slate, and porphyritic conglomerates 
(g), possibly of Lower Mesozoic age. Further to the east, beyond a 
great valley, grey and blue gold-bearing schists (2) form a wide 
flattened boss, and are seen to throw off the hornblendic slates (4) 
and sandstones (g) to the west, and only g to the east. These old 
slaty rocks (2), often micaceous, quartzose, or chloritic, were described 
in some detail, as forming a triple series; they bear ancient lake- 
deposits (d), with brown-coal, and the great gold-drift, as shewn by 
special maps and sections. East of the schistose country are—l. 
inclined sandstones with estuarine shells and excellent brown-coal 
(e); 2. marine clays with septaria (¢) ; and 3. the white crag (6)— 
‘ Ototara limestone’ of Mantell. Some marine beds, possibly con- 
temporaneous with d, also occur near the coast. The carbonaceous 
beds e may possibly be Upper Mesozoic, the others (d—6) are Tertiary. 
There are also extensive alluvial deposits. Volcanic rocks occur 
at Otago Harbour and elsewhere near the eastern coast, and are of 
late Tertiary age. The author thinks that the country was higher, 
and glacial action greater, in Post-tertiary times than now, but that 
no great or general submergence has taken place since. 
On tHE Coat-mHAsuRES oF New Sour Watss, with Spirirer, GLossoprenis, 
AND Lerrpopenbroy. By Wititam Kurenn, Esq., Examiner of Coal-fields and 
Keeper of Mining Records, New South Wales. 
A GEOLOGICAL map of the country as far as examined by the 
author, and a generalized section, illustrated this paper, which 
referred, firstly, to the existence of Belemnites (indicating Secondary 
rocks) near the River Belliando, in Queensland; 2nd, the sili- 
ceous fern-shales with dicotyledonous leaves, from the southern 
part of N. S. Wales, which the author thinks to be older than the 
Coal-measures ; 3rd, the ‘false coal-measures’ or ‘Wyanamatta 
Shales,’ in the upper part of the ‘Sydney sandstone ;’ 4th, the ex- 
istence of eleven workable seams of coal in the true Coal-measures 
