812 Transactions.— Geology. 
Komiti Point; and he makes no attempt to prove that the Orakei Bay beds 
are of eretaceo-tertiary age. He certainly says that the Mercer beds, which 
are generally thought to be the equivalents of the Waitemata series, ‘‘ close 
the sequence of rocks succeeding the cretaceo-tertiary coal formation ;" but 
this is a pure assumption unsupported by any evidence and abandoned by 
Mr. Cox as disproved.* 
Mr. McKay also ignores altogether the opinion of the European palzon- 
tologists who have examined the fossils from Orakei Bay. Professor Rupert 
Jones examined the Foraminifera, and thought that they indicated a late 
tertiary period.+ In the Paleontology of the Voyage of the Novara Herr 
Karrer says that these Foraminifera are probably of the same age as the 
Vienna Basin—i.e. miocene,—and Dr. Stoliczka thinks that the Bryozoa 
indicate a miocene or perhaps older pliocene age; while Professor Martin 
Dunean thinks that the Orakei Bay beds are probably the equivalents of the 
Mount Gambier series of South Australia, which he calls middle cainozoie, ] 
and which are considered by all Australian geologists to be miocene. So 
that four well-known paleontologists all agree that these beds are not older 
than miocene. 
The reason why the Orakei Bay beds were considered by the Geological 
Survey to be of cretaceo-tertiary age is stated by Mr. Cox. He says it was 
because Pecten zittelli and Pecten fischeri oceurred in them; and he further 
says that ‘‘we have always considered P. zittelli to be a typical fossil in the 
cretaceo-tertiary series—indeed, to be almost confined to the Leda marls ; 
and now to find it associated with a large number of Pareora fossils is apt 
to throw discredit on those fossils which we have considered as distinctive of 
any special horizon."$ But I am not aware that either of these species of 
Pecten has ever been found associated with cretaceous fossils. Both were de- 
scribed from rocks at Papakura, considered by Dr. Stache to be oligocene, and 
by Dr. Zittel to be eocene. P. zittelli also occurs at Cape Kidnappers|| in beds 
acknowledged both by Dr. Hector and by Mr. MeKay** to be miocene, and 
the finding of both species by Mr. Cox, in 1880, with acknowledged miocene 
fossils at Komiti Point, proved decisively that neither Species can be taken 
as characteristic of cretaceo-tertiary rocks. 
But there is still another point altogether omitted in Mr. McKay’s report. 
If the ** marly grits ” containing Orakei Bay fossils at Komiti Point belong to 
* Reports of Geological Explorations, 1881, p. 36. 
t Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc., xvi., p. 251 (1860). 
ł Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc., xxvi., p. 316 (1870). 
$ Reports of Geological Explorations, 1879-80,.p. 17. 
|| Cat. Tertiary Mollusca of New Zealand, 1873, p. 32. 
*| Reports Geol. Exp., 1877-78, p. 190. 
** Rep. Geol. Exp., 1874-76, p. 49, and Rep. Geol. Exp., 1878-79, p. 70. 
