III.—GEOLOGY. 
Art. XXXIX.—On the Age of the Orakei Bay Beds near Auckland, 
By Captain F. W. Hvrros, F.G.8. 
[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 27th November, 1884.] 
Ix his lecture on the geology of the Province of Auckland, delivered to the 
members of the Auckland Mechanics’ Institute, on 24th June, 1859, Dr. von 
Hochstetter, after describing the brown coals of the Province, and the tertiary 
strata on the west coast from Waikato to Kawhia, said that ** the horizontal 
beds of sandstone and marls which form the cliffs of the Waitemata and 
extend in a northerly direction towards Kawau, belong to a newer tertiary 
formation.”* This he considered to be of miocene age, but fossils were 
obtained only at Orakei Bay, and in an ash-bed at Wangaparoa. Subse- 
quently, on his return to Europe, Dr. von Hochstetter followed Dr. Zittel 
in placing the ** Waitemata series" with the west coast or ‘‘ Aotea series," 
but he considered both as older miocene.t Dr. Stache, however, considered 
the Aotea series to be oligocene,? and Dr. Zittel considered it to be eocene.§ 
The first attempt to ascertain the relative age of these two series by 
stratigraphical evidence was made in a paper read to the Auckland Institute 
on 8th August, 1870.|| In this paper I showed that the Waitemata series 
can be traced eastward beyond the Tamaki and Howick to Turanga Creek, 
where it consists of a set of yellow clays and white or pale yellow sand- 
stones, stained in places by iron oxide. It rests here unconformably on a 
dark green or bluish sandstone, generally showing a concretionary structure, 
which can, in its turn, be traced nearly to the Papakura River, and on the 
other side of the valley it reappears, on the north side of the Hunua hills, 
where it is associated with the Papakura limestone, and, with other beds, 
forms the ** Papakura series," which rests unconformably on the coal series 
of Drury. Consequently the Waitemata series is separated from the coal 
series of Drury by two unconformities. The Papakura series was con- 
sidered to be the equivalent, or very nearly the equivalent, of the Aotea 
series, and to be of oligocene age, while the Waitemata series was considered 
as miocene, 
* Geology of New Zealand, Auckland, 1864, p. 26. 
t Reise der Novara, Geology, I., p. 34. t Reise der Novara, Palwontology, p. 298. 
§ On the Palzontology of New Zealand, Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc., xix. (1863), Misc., p. 20, 
|| Trans. N.Z. Inst., iii., p. 244. 
