580 Proceedings. 
specimens, illustrating the geology of Canada, from Mr. A. R. C. Selwyn, 
F.R.S., the Director of the Geological Survey of the Province, have been 
added, and a few ores of interest, collected in Cornwall, have been received 
from Mr. J. D. Enys, F.G.S. 
The collection of New Zealand minerals and ores has been re-arranged 
and catalogued, and the volcanic and metamorphic rocks are now under- 
going a more thorough chemical and microscopical examination than they 
have hitherto received, while, at the same time, duplicate specimens are 
being selected for exchange. 
Palaontology.—The most important collection of foreign fossils added to 
the Museum during the past year, is a series illustrating the carboniferous 
rocks of New South Wales and Tasmania, obtained by the Director during 
a visit to Australia. This series has proved of great service in comparing 
the equivalent formations in New Zealand. 
Geological Survey Collections.—These have been very ample and im- 
portant in their bearing on the geology of the Islands, and especially in 
relation to the Lower Mesozoic rocks, which have, until now, been very 
imperfectly understood. 
The chief field-work of the year was the detailed survey of the Hokanui 
range in Southland, which has, for many years, been known to present the 
most typical development of the formations from Jurassic to Permian. 
The results obtained are fully detailed in the Geological Reports for the 
year, but it may be stated here, that the above formations form a strati- 
graphical sequence, but were divided into 76 well-defined beds, the outcrops 
of which were traced and studied in section, over an area of 82 square miles 
_ The fossils, which number over 5,000 specimens, were collected from 
twenty-five distinct horizons, and form a very large and important addition 
to the paleontological data now in the Museum, which are only partially 
arranged and worked out :— 
The total thickness of the strata represented in the sections is 21,000 
feet, viz. :— 
Upper Oolite ... ds ss ke TS ... 8,500 
Middle Oolite 850 
Lower Oolite TT zi ve os es OO 
Lias and Rhetic wa "e see bad 2. A D00 
Permian Triassic iN T "n idi oo SAO 
Permian Carboniferous.. ih GO 
The most remarkable baies is the Pen icd of our Infra- 
Triassie Marine formation, characterized by a great profusion of Brachio- 
poda, several of these forms being generically distinct from any hitherto 
described, while there is a total absence of any true Spirifera. It is thus 
