﻿Hector.— i^om? Penguin. 345 



that can be inspected has been observed in their sequence ; and, moreover, 

 certain fossil forms are found in all the members of the series. 



a. The highest beds are green calcareous sands, generally ferruginoiis, 

 which are followed by tabular limestones, having a thickness of about 700 feet. 

 These beds abound in fossils, of which Pecten Hoclistetteri is the most constant 

 and characteristic. 



h. These calcareous beds, which represent the Ototai'a series, pass gradually 

 into a comj)act chalk marl and then to tough argillaceous marl, which contain, 

 along with Pecten Hoclistetteri, many large forms of Echinodernis and a very 

 large species of Inoceramus. The thickness of these beds is at least 800 feet. 



c. Beneath the foregoing are finely laminated and extremely friable marly 

 shales of a chocolate and grey colour, with thin, hard calcareous bands, with 

 only few indistinct fossils, which are chiefly Foraminiferce. The thickness of 

 these shales is over 400 feet. 



d. Tough blue clays, having a globular structure and ferruginous partings, 

 succeed these, and gradually pass into a brown argillaceous and micaceous 

 sandstone, with concretions of limonite, which contain a few chai-actei'istic 

 fossils, chiefly littoral forms, such as Cardium, Natica, and a small Echinoderni 

 {ScMzaster ?) being forms that are not found higher in the series. The thick- 

 ness of the clays and sandstones is probably not less than 1,000 feet. 



e. They rest on an irregular surface of a great fluviatile formation, the 

 upper portion consisting generally of conglomerates, which attain a thickness 

 of 800 feet, and rest on fine micaceous sandstones, grits, and shales, but 

 sometimes the conglomerates are absent, and the sandstones pass insensibly 

 into the previous group. 



On the surface of the conglomerates, and immediately succeeded by the 

 fossiliferous sandstone, is frequently a seam of brown pitch coal, from 4 to 30 

 feet in thickness, but this, as might be expected, is by no means constant. 



In the lower sandstone there is always more or less coaly matter, and 

 abundance of fossil leaves of dicotyledonous trees, zamias, and palms, and 

 locally fine seams of excellent, though friable, bituminous coal, attaining a 

 thickness of 10 to 20 feet. 



In some places on the west coast this formation passes downwards into a 

 breccia of green and blue slate rock fragments, cemented with quartzose por- 

 phyry, but more frequently it rests directly on the piimary slates and granite 

 formation that constitute the framework of the district. 



The section which I have thus described may be seen on the coast north, of 

 the Grey River, where the strata have a dip to the seaward of 10° to 12°, 

 but they also present the same general character and order of succession in 

 mountains in the northern part of the ISTelson province, at the source of the 

 Karamea River, where almost vertical sections, of 2,700 feet in height, can be 



