624 Transactions. 
greywacke, but on the line of the fault the greywacke is exposed some 
250 ft. to 300ft. vertically above the line to which the coal-measures 
reach in the bed of the creek, and the fault-plane is in consequence almost 
vertical, if not actually in a reversed position. 
The chief tributary of Macfarlane Stream farther west follows the strike 
approximately, but in the gullies coming in from the flanks of Benmore 
the upper sand and greensand beds are exposed in places, and the position 
of the south-east boundary suggests the continuance of the fault-line to 
the south-west. The width of the coal-measures narrows gradually on 
tracing them south-west, but they extend almost to the crest of the saddle 
at the head of the creek. In this creek the sill mentioned previously occurs 
about 250 yards above the junction, strikes nearly due east, and dips south 
at an angle of 40°. It underlies light-green sands. Immediately up-stream 
from it a gully comes in from the south, in which are exposed greensands 
with rusty-brown stain, grey sands, sandy shales, passing up into greenish 
glaciated or not. There is no reason why ice should not have invaded the 
head of the basin of Macfarlane Stream over the saddle which leads to the 
Rakaia Valley, especially as there is undoubted proof of the presence of 
glacier-ice lower down the Rakaia Valley having crossed ridges at a higher 
elevation than this saddle, and some of the features in the upper part of 
the basin can be attributed to ice-action. In the middle of the basin 
of the weak Cretaceous beds on which they now lie, and it is just possible, 
eun not probable, that they have been transported by agencies other 
than ice. 
The two special features of the area which have an interest not limited 
to the area itself are the occurrence of rhyolite conglomerate and also the 
positive evidence of faulting. With regard to the former, Hutton noted a 
difficulty, especially in the occurrence of the rhyolite pebbles at Craigieburn, 
and attributed its wide distribution to the action of a hypothetical river | 
running from the Malvern Hills, past Benmore, through the Broken River 
basin, but he considered the form of the land-surface to be substantially 
the same as that at present existing. If, however, we take a more modern 
interpretation of the origin of the alpine region of Canterbury, with a stage 
during the middle Cretaceous after Jurassic folding, when it was reduced 
to a peneplain, then the features present no difficulty. The rhyolite pebbles 
have in that case travelled up a shore-line from their place of origin in the 
neighbourhood of the Misery-Rockwood ridge, or perhaps from farther out 
in the plains from an area of rhyolite now buried under Tertiary and 
Quaternary deposits. 
When this peneplain, with its cover of sediments, was raised at the 
close of the Tertiary era the elevation was attended with faulting, and 
it is probable that this faulting continued down to a comparatively 
late recent date. In any case, this faulting is responsible for the major 
surface features of the Malvern Hills as they stand at present. From а 
study of the lie of the remnants of the Cretaceous coal-bearing beds 
which are preserved in the valleys in the heart of the Malvern Hills @ 
