Burarr.—On the Building Materials of Otago. 147 
in course of construction through that range. Although hard, the stone 
dresses readily with the axe. It is found in large blocks, with regular 
vertical cleavages, in both directions, at right angles to each other, which 
gives the stones two natural faces, as true as can be worked artificially, 
thereby presenting great facilities for quarrying and dressing. ‘The brown 
sandstone of Otepopo is.too dull in colour for ordinary architectural work 
in large surfaces; but seems well adapted for basements, facings, and — 
massive masonry. 
The class of sandstones that comes next under our notice is the rusty- 
yellow varieties found at Anderson Bay, Arden Bay, Kaikorai, Saddle 
Hill, and Greytown. In my opinion these rocks are simply ordinary soft 
sandstone, like that at Caversham, dried, consolidated, and baked by volcanic 
fires. In the early days of the settlement, this stone was used to some extent 
in Dunedin and its vicinity. In the Juror’s Reports of the New Zealand 
Exhibition, analyses are given of several varieties, which show them to have, 
to a moderate extent, the essentials of a good building material. The 
reporters, however, say that, in consequence of the excess of impalpable 
cement contained in the Arden Bay stone, ‘it will not be durable if much 
exposed to the weather ;’’ and that the Anderson Bay stone “ breaks up 
rapidly when tested with sulphate of soda, so it will not resist the action of 
frost.’’ These two stones happen to have been used in the New Zealand 
Clothing Factory, built about the year 1861. [rom its enclosed position, 
the southern wall of this building never gets the sun, so the stone has been 
subjected to the severest meteorological test that can be applied in Dunedin. 
The predictions with reference to the Arden Bay stone have been realized, 
as the lintels and sills are beginning to decay, but three lintels of the 
Anderson Bay stone are as fresh as when erected. 
The class of sandstone that comes next in order of hardness, I shall call 
the ‘ Otepopo Free Stone,” as that district furnishes the greatest number 
and variety of specimens. They, however, occur at other places throughout 
the province, notably on Mr. Larnach’s property, near Broad Bay. 
In the Otepopo Valley, the stone is of all shades, from clear white to 
dark yellows and reds ; that at Mr. Larnach’s is bluish-grey, like Portland 
cement. Although it abounds in great quantities, and often in accessible 
situations, the distances of the deposits from centres of population or a 
shipping port, has hitherto prevented its use; neither has the stone, to my 
knowledge, been analyzed. It seems to have most of the attributes of a 
good building material. The only objectionable feature I can discern is an 
apparent deficiency of cohesion between the particles of sand. As the 
cementing ingredient does not appear to be clay or lime, it is possible that 
this defect does not exist in stone from the bed rock. If the objection just 
