﻿Thomson. — Work for Field Naturalists. 139 



of water. About an hour's walk from Anderson's Bay, there is, right on the 

 top of the hill at the righthand side of the road, an immense block of stone, 

 the " Big Stone," from the flat top of which a magnificent view is had, worth 

 all the labour of getting there. Then there are the various quarries in the 

 neighbourhood of Caversham, in which fossil shells and sharks' teeth are 

 occasionally found. Farther off is the grand section of the sandstone rock 

 exhibited in the line of cliffs which bound the coast near Gi'een Island, the 

 cliffs themselves bounded in turn by the noble promontory of Green Island 

 Peninsula, which shows, in a most beautiful way, the vai-ied phenomena of 

 basaltic pillars. In the same neighbourhood are the coal pits, and a little 

 further out is the quartz reef at Christie's. Beyond Anderson's Bay is Lawyer's 

 Head, with a fine cave under its northern face, and at Tomahawk Bluff there 

 are several others, all of which can be visited at low water. The Green Island 

 cliffs also boast of a cave ; and on the estate of Lauriston, near Saddle Hill, 

 there is a singular cave, in which a large number of moa bones were found 

 some year or two ago. Underneath the trap rock of Bell Hill there is a bed 

 of sand, which also undeilies that bold rock face at the southern end of 

 Princes-street, passing through to the Glen road. At the head of Pelichet 

 Bay there is an extensive bed of pipe-clay, and another which contains singular 

 concretions of ironstone, as well as small masses of a bright white substance 

 which turns blue on exposure to the air. At Kempshell's quarry, up the North- 

 east Valley, beautiful specimens of dendritic iron and manganese are plentiful. 

 There are places farther off, such as Whare Flat, the Heads, Portobello, Blue- 

 skin, etc., which are well worthy of a visit. But, to be brief, T have surely 

 said enough to show that a wide field exists in our neighbourhood for the 

 study of geology ; although, at the same time, it is to be regretted that there 

 are few fossiliferous localities near town. 



Turning, now, to botany. Perhaps there is not in all New Zealand a town 

 so favourably situated for the study of this science as Dunedin. The immense 

 tracts of forest which extend to the east and north are now intersected in every 

 direction with tolerably good roads, so that the student has little difiiculty in 

 penetrating with his field book to almost any given point. Most of the 

 members of the Institute are aware, through our late vice-president, Mr. Webb, 

 that the collection of flowering plants in the museum is deficient in a good 

 many species, so that here is a capital chance for the Field Naturalists to supply 

 those desiderata. At the same time, I must, as a caution not to be over 

 sanguine, say that it is no easy matter going into the bush with a list of wants 

 in one's hands and expect to come out of it again with more than one, or, may 

 be, half-a-dozen. It is possible to traverse the bush for hours and not find a 

 single example of the plant wanted, and yet it may be almost stumbled over 

 in the first few yards. In addition to the flowering plants wanted, there are 



