Ceawfoed. — GcoJof/jj of ill e North Island of Neio Zealand. 313 



western shores of Cook Slrait ihe^e lerliaries have a gentle slope upwards 

 xmtil they rcacli to A\itliin half a mile of Tarariia and Enahine, where the 

 inclination becomes greater and the heds appear somewhat disturbed, as if 

 the range had been thrust throi;gh them, or pressed against them from the 

 eastward; and in support of this view there is a line of fault along the 

 western or "Wairarapa side of the ranges, in which the gravels of the plain 

 resting against the ranges are fissured, and that side of the fissure next the 

 ranges is raised some four feet above the other. 



In a similar way the nearly horizontal tertiaries at the "Whanganui part of 

 the basin are tilted at an angle of perhaps 20° on apj)roaching the volcanic 

 chain. 



"We may therefore describe the whole of the North Island, except the 

 palseozoic ranges, or, at all events, all that part of the country to the west- 

 wai'd of the main ranges, as the great tertiary ^e/c^ of New Zealand; and 

 the country sloping from the flanks of Tararua and Huahine, from the Patea 

 country and the end of Ivaimanawa, and from the great volcanic chain, and 

 also the slopes of Mount Egmont, into, perhaps across, Cook Strait, in fact 

 all the slopes towards Cook Strait, as the great tertiary basin of the country. 

 On the eastern side of the main range the usual tertiaries are found, except 

 the brown coal series, which has not yet been discovered, unless perhaps in 

 small quantity ; but CaciUlcea siii^idaris is found on a tributary of the 

 Pahaoa, and the usual tertiary fossils abound in many places. The eastern 

 rocks generally dip slightly to the westward, but, at about seven miles from 

 the east coast, they are throw-n up at a very high angle, where the edges of 

 the upturned strata form a most striking series of peaks called Taijpo, and 

 supposed by the aborigines to be the haunts of taniioha, or other mysterious 

 and mythical animals ; , and certain sandstones and limestones of undeter- 

 mined age succeed them, which, as before stated, are probably of mesozoic age. 



The tertiary rocks pass northward from the eastern side of the Province 

 of "WeUington, through that of Hawke Bay, and appear to extend throughout 

 along the east coast to the East Cape, at which point they lie horizontal, 

 and extend from that cape to the nearest palaeozoic rocks in Hicks Bay, a 

 distance of perhaps eight to ten miles. 



It will be seen from the above that the tertiaries occupy a great breadth 

 of country on the east coast, having an average width of about thirty miles ; 

 and as Hochstetter gives perhaps somewhat undue prominence to the 

 mountain chain extending N.IST.E. from Cape Palliser, and inferentially to 

 the older rocks along the east coast,* I propose to amend his description of 

 the main ranges, as follows, viz., loMch stretch along parallel to the east coast, 

 and at an average distance of ahout tliirty miles inland, from Cook Strait to 



* Fischer's Xranslatiou, p. 45. 

 40 



