Report. 467 



be referred the beautiful white statuary marble and the dove-coloured " forti- 

 fication " marble of Caswell Sound, on the west coast of Otago, which are 

 now being placed in the market by a company that has been formed to work 

 the quarries. The samples received in the Museum indicate it to be a 

 marble of very superior quality for ornamental and building purposes. 



The geology of the southern part of the Provincial District of Wellmgton 

 has also received further illustration in the shape of a number of metalli- 

 ferous and rock specimens, including specimens of ii'on, manganese, lime- 

 stone, serpentinous and eruptive rocks ; and from Jenkins' Hill, Nelson, 

 another sj)ecimeu of carbonate of iron, containing 40' 8 per cent, of that 

 metal, has been collected, thus adding another locality from which this 

 valuable ore has been obtained. It occm-s here under similar conditions to 

 the ore of the same character previously described from Mr. Foote's coUiery, 

 at the Miranda Eedoubt, and is associated with the coal measures. 



PalcBontology . — The fossil collections made during the past year by the 

 staff of the Geological Siuwey Department, have been both large and im- 

 portant, and represent a great variety of formations ranging from recent 

 times to Lower Silurian. 



In the North Island the principal collections have come from the Miocene 

 and Cretaceous beds developed on the West Coast in the Mokau District, 

 while from the East Coast small but important collections have been made. 

 In the Napier District, Mr. M'Kay succeeded in finding Ammonites in the 

 chalk-marls of the Waipawa Gorge, thus confirming the Cretaceous age of 

 the beds which had been previously assigned to them, chiefly on account of 

 their mineral character. In the same district fresh-water deposits, con- 

 taining fossils, were discovered on the banks of the Waipawa Eiver ; but it 

 is yet uncertain whether these beds form part of the series underlying the 

 Scinde Island beds, or were deposited in lakes, which were spread over the 

 district after the last elevation of land in Pleistocene times. 



Farther south in the Provincial District of Wellington the chief collec- 

 tions have been made from the tertiary beds which form high cliffs along 

 the shore of Palliser Bay. The higher beds occurring in these cliffs contain 

 Pleiocene fossils, and rest unconformably upon the Lower Miocene and Upper 

 Eocene deposits below. 



The only other discovery of importance in the North Island is the occur- 

 rence of the Mount Torlesse Annelid at Karori, in the neighbourhood of 

 Wellington, which fossil, although widely distributed in the South, had not 

 hitherto been found in the North Island. 



The largest collections made during the past year come from the 

 northern part of the Nelson province. From the Triassic rocks occurring 

 at the Wairoa Gorge, and their south-west extension to Eighty-eight 



