174 DE. C. T. TEECIIMAXN ON [vol. Ixxiii,. 



the coast- section extending southwards and south-westwards the 

 Jurassic deposits pass conformably down into a thick series of grev 

 felspathic sandstones with bands of pebbles and conglomerate-beds. 

 These beds gradually become increasingly inclined until Tarawa! 

 Point, north of Albatross Point, is reached. Fossils are scarce, but 

 quite high up in these beds Prof. Marshall and I found a specimen 

 of Arcestes cf. rliceticus, and a little lower down another similar 

 but indeterminable Arcestes. Brachiopods occui* sparingh^ gener- 

 ally in little clusters throughout a great thickness of these rocks- 

 The commonest form is Hectoria hlsulcata, and rather high up 

 (but below the Arcestes^ I found two specimens of Mentzelia. 

 These beds are presumably Phsetic. 



At Tarawai Point, some miles south of Kawhia Harbour, there 

 is a large intrusion of a hypabyssal porphyry of the sj'enite group, 

 and the sedimentary rocks are here nearly or quite vertical. A 

 black argillite full of PseudoDwnotis oclwtica and its varieties 

 occurs in very close association w^ith this intrusion, and seems in 

 places to underlie and become involved in it. Great masses of 

 this dark shale are found mixed up with blocks of porphyr}^ b'^^^o 

 on the shore. These beds are Xoric, and are the lowest Trias 

 that I saw in this localit3\ McKay,i in a sketch-map appended 

 to his report of the district, shows a repetition of the Wairoa, 

 Otapiri, and Bastion Series south of the igneous intrusion, but says- 

 that the rocks were not examined. Prof. Marshall, who on a pre- 

 vious occasion visited that very rugged portion of the coast in a 

 boat, tells me that he saw no fossils there. 



South Island. 

 Nelson Area. 



The strip of fossiliferous Trias in this district extends in a north- 

 easterly and south-westerly direction from near Richmond to 

 Eighty-Eight Yalley, a distance of about 12 miles. Its greatest 

 width is about three-quarters of a mile, near the Wairoa Gorge. 

 The beds are steeply inclined. Various sections have been drawn 

 to show the arrangement of the beds, but the structure is com- 

 plicated and involved. Great divergence of opinion exists regarding 

 the presence or absence of faults, and the relation of the Trias of 

 the foothills to the Maitai Limestones and Argillites which form 

 the higher peaks that bound it on the south-east. In the Wairoa 

 Gorge the Maitai Limestone contains an L^pper Palaeozoic fauna, 

 and closely adjoins the dark greywackes full of JSLytilus proh- 

 lematicus. At Richmond the felspathic sandstones containing 

 Pseudomonotis riclimondiana are sharply cut off on the east b}' 

 unfossiliferous red and green slaty argillites of the Maitai Series. 



The Kaihiku Beds appear only in Eighty-Eight Yalley at the 

 south-western end of the Triassic outcrop. Here they are wedged 

 in between Maitai Limestone on the south-east and the Upper 



^ Bibliography, 30. 



