Hurton.—On the Age of the Orakei Bay Beds. 309 
Bay, and reported that ‘‘the sequence between Fort Britomart and Orakei 
Bay is sufficiently conclusive to make it a matter of certainty that no 
stratigraphical break occurs above the horizon of the Orakei Bay fossils, 
which are again seen at Komiti Point."* He also gives a section of 
Komiti Point, and says, ‘At Komiti Point, again, a gritty bed occurs at 
the base of this [older tertiary] series, resting quite unconformably upon the 
upturned edges of the chalk-marls [cretaceo-tertiary]; and it was from the 
lowest bed of this series that my collection of fossils was made last year. 
After passing round the first point and reaching a small bay beyond, a 
second fossiliferous bed comes in, which is about 100 feet higher in the 
vertical sequence than the fossiliferous bed first mentioned. This bed 
corresponds entirely with the fossiliferous deposit at Orakei Bay, Auckland, 
containing the same fossils, and being of precisely the same character ; and 
these beds pass up again into regularly stratified sandstones and marls, 
which continue until just before the far point is reached, where beds of 
consolidated sand come in with lignitiferous deposits and old timber partially 
carbonized.” ł It thus appears that Orakei Bay fossils are also found 100 
feet above the bed which contains Pecten zittelli and P. fischeri mixed with 
miocene fossils ; and that there are no tufaceous beds in the locality. 
On the 30th June, 1881, Mr. Cox again reported on the position of the 
Orakei Bay beds. He followed them this time eastward towards Mareitai 
and found that at Turanga Creek they rested on a green “ concretionary 
tufaceous sandstone " which is underlaid by clay marls and calcareous sand- 
stone.t His section shows the Waitemata series conformable to this green 
sandstone, but in his report he says that it is unconformable, and his map 
shows a decided unconformity between the two, as the Waitemata series is 
made to overstep the green sandstone and to lie on the older slates. I may 
remark that this map agrees closely with an unpublished one which I made 
in 1866, and which Mr. Cox had not seen. 
In October, 1883, Mr. A. McKay was sent to investigate the question. 
He reported in favour of Dr. Hector’s opinion that the Waitemata series 
consists of two distinct formations of different ages;§ and Dr. Hector in his 
Progress Report for the same year, in mentioning the coal at the Whau, 
speaks of “ the lower miocene series that overlie uneonformably the * Waite- 
- mata beds’ of Hochstetter (taking the Orakei Bay beds as his type)."|| Mr. 
McKay’s report however has not convinced me that Dr. Hector is right, and 
I wish to make a few remarks upon it. 
Mr. McKay mentions “ bands of soft marly sandstone, parted by beds of 
soft crumbling sandy marl of darker colour” as forming the beds at Point 
Britomart, which, he says, pass under the Parnell grit; and he describes 
* Reports of Geological Explorations, 1881, p.27. t Le., p. 28. $ he» p. 95. 
§ Reports of Geological Explorations, 1883-84, p. 101. ||] Les, p. xviii. 
