Tlie Australasian Association 281 



while at Nenthorn, thirty miles to the North, in a, schist 

 formation, we find an entry of 35deg. 41min. In view of 

 the fact that attention has been recently directed to the 

 marked effects on the direction and intensity of the terres- 

 trial magnetic currents of great lines of fault along which 

 movements have take'n place, such as those which bring 

 widely different geological formations into discordant con- 

 tact, with the probable production of mineral veins, this 

 subject of special magnetic surveys is deserving of being 

 undertaken in New Zealand. In Japan and in the United 

 States of America the results have already proved highly 

 suggestive. A comparison between this country and Japan 

 by such observations, especially if combined with systema- 

 tic and synchronous records by modern seismographic in- 

 struments, would be of great service to the physical geolo- 

 gist. There are many features in common, and many quite 

 reversed in the orographic and other physical features of 

 these two countries. Both are formed by the crests of great 

 earth waves lying north-east and south-west, and parallel 

 to, but distant from, continental areas, and both are tra- 

 versed by great longitudinal faults and fissures, and each 

 by one great transverse fault. Dr. Nauman, in a recent 

 paper, alludes to this in Japan as the Fossa Magna, and it 

 corresponds in position in relation to Japan with Cook 

 Strait in relation to New Zealand. But the Fossa Magna of 

 Japan has been filled up with volcanic products, and is the 

 seat of the loftiest active volcano in Japan. In Cook Strait 

 and its vicinity, as you are aware, there are no volcanic 

 rocks, but there and southward, through the Kaikouras, 

 evidence of fault movements on a larger scale is apparent, 

 and it would be most interesting to ascertain if the remark- 

 able deviation from the normal in direction and force of the 

 magnetic currents, which are experienced in Japan, are 

 also found in New Zealand. For it is evident that if they are 

 in any way related to the strain of cross fractures in the earth's 

 crust, the observation would tend to eliminate the local influ- 

 ence of the volcanic rocks which are present in one case ami 

 absent in the other. With reference to earthquakes also, few, 



