part 3] THE TEIAS OF jS^EW ZEALAND. 179 



Fossils are unusually well preserved in beds c and e. The 

 Geological Survey reports make no mention of the occurrence of 

 Mytilus lyrohlematicus in the Hokonui Hills, and so it would 

 appear that this section was overlooked by the Government surveyors 

 in 1878. 



Kaihiku Gorge. 



This gorge cuts across the strike of the Triassic range between 

 'the Hokonui Hills and Nugget Point. At the entrance of the 

 gorge several blocks fallen from the rock that crops out on the 

 grassy hillside, but is not well exposed, contain the fauna which 

 takes its name from the locality. The fauna, a very constant one, 

 corresponds exactly to that found at various points in the Hoko- 

 nuis and at Eighty-Eight Valley, near Nelson. Some distance 

 above this a thick coarse conglomerate occurs, overlain by a hard 

 greywacke full of indeterminable plant-remains. A thick series 

 of spheroidal felspathic sandstones represent the Wairoa and 

 Otapiri Beds, but fossils are very scanty. In the stream I found 

 a piece of a Pinacoceras, evidently washed down from the higher 

 Triassic beds. 



Nugget Point. 



This is one of the clearest sections of the Trias in New Zealand. 

 In Boaring Bay or Shaw Bay, south of Nugget Point Lighthouse, 

 the beds are ranged almost vertically for a distance of nearly a 

 mile. It is possible to obtain a good idea of the thickness and 

 succession of the fossiliferous Trias. Here, however, although 

 the Carnic with the Mytiliis-]jrohlematiciis Bed is well developed, 

 the Pseudomonotis Beds of the Noric are missing. The series 

 €ommences with hard unfossiliferous greywackes and felspathic 

 sandstones, upon wdiich the lighthouse stands. Slightly south of 

 this. Prof. Park tells me that fossiliferous bands in the Kaihiku 

 Series occur, although I did not succeed in finding them. The 

 Carnic Series is excellently developed, and yields many fossils, 

 showing several recognizable zones. About 195 feet above the 

 Mytilus-]_orohlematicus Bed is a band of ferruginous sandstone with 

 fragmentary plant-remains, where I collected a fragment of a frond 

 which I identified as Thinnfeldia cf. odontopteroides Morris.^ 

 The late Dr. E. A. N. Arber kindly confirmed this identification, 

 and informed me that this species is commonest in the Upper 

 Trias, although not confined to that horizon. The Noric is not 

 recognizable here ; but Prof. Marshall has recently traced it at 

 Glenomaru, about 10 miles inland from Nugget Point. A frag- 

 ment of the rock that he sent me is full apparentl}^ of the small 

 rounded and arched variety of Pseudomonotis riclimondiana. The 

 Triassic System comes to an end, about a mile south of the light- 

 house, with a hard, resistant, pebbly and glauconitic or chloritic 

 felspathic conglomerate, full of ILectoria {Clavigera) hisulccda 



^ Now in the Sedgwick Mtiseum, Cambridge. 



