Cnawronp.— Geology of the North Island of New Zealand. 318 
western shores of Cook Strait these tertiaries have a gentle slope upwards 
until they reach to within half a mile of Tararua and Ruahine, where the 
inclination becomes greater and the beds appear somewhat disturbed, as if 
the range had been thrust through them, or pressed against them from the 
eastward; and in support of this view there is a line of fault along the 
western or Wairarapa side of the ranges, in which the gravels of the plain 
resting against the ranges are fissured, and that side of the fissure next the 
ranges is raised some four feet above the other. 
In a similar way the nearly horizontal tertiaries at the Whanganui part of 
the basin are tilted at an angle of perhaps 20° on approaching the volcanic 
chain. 
We may therefore describe the whole of the North Island, except the 
palæozoic ranges, or, at all events, all that part of the country to the west- 
ward of the main ranges, as the great tertiary field of New Zealand; and 
the country sloping from the flanks of Tararua and Ruahine, from the Patea 
country and the end of Kaimanawa, and from the great volcanic chain, and 
also the slopes of Mount Egmont, into, perhaps across, Cook Strait, in fact 
all the slopes towards Cook Strait, as the great tertiary basin of the country. 
On the eastern side of the main range the usual tertiaries are found, except 
the brown coal series, which has not yet been discovered, unless perhaps in 
small quantity; but Cwcullea singularis is found on a tributary of the 
P: and the usual tertiary fossils abound in many places. The eastern 
rocks generally dip slightly to the westward, but, at about seven miles from 
the east coast, they are thrown up at a very high angle, where the edges of 
the upturned strata form a most striking series of peaks called Taipo, and 
supposed by the aborigines to be the haunts of taniwha, or other mysterious 
and mythical animals; and certain sandstones and limestones of undeter- 
mined age succeed thon, which, as before stated, are probably of mesozoic age. 
The tertiary rocks pass northward from the eastern side of the Province 
of Wellington, through that of Hawke Bay, and appear to extend throughout 
along the east coast to the East Cape, at which point they lie horizontal, 
and extend from that cape to the nearest palæozoic rocks in Hicks Bay, a 
~~ of perhaps eight to ten miles. 
seen from the above that the tertiaries occupy a great breadth 
of siia on the east coast, having an average width of about thirty miles ; 
and as Hochstetter gives perhaps somewhat undue prominence to the 
mountain chain extending N.N.E. from Cape Palliser, and inferentially to 
the older rocks along the east coast,* I propose to amend his description of 
the main ranges, as follows, viz., which stretch along parallel to the east coast, 
and at an average distance of about thirty miles inland, from Cook Strait to 
* Fischer’s Translation, p. 45, 
40 
