390 PROF. P. MARSHALL ON THE [Aug. I906, 



although in places local disturbances of these strata undoubtedly 

 took place during the eruptions. 



The seams of brown coal that are found in the Tertiary formations 

 occur usually near the base, and rest, with few underlying strata, 

 upon the schist. Some of them, at Saddle Hill and in the valley 

 of the Kaikorai stream, are extensively worked. 



The fossils found in the calcareous sandstone-series are sufficient 

 to allow of the correlation of this formation with contemporaneous 

 strata in other parts of New Zealand. There are numerous 

 foraminifera — species of JSfodosaria, TeMularia, Cristellaria, and 

 Lagena, but none have so far been described. Of mollusca, Pecten 

 Huttoni is abundant and characteristic. Waldheimia lenticularis 

 is the most abundant brachiopod ; and Meoma Orawfordi an 

 echinoderm. These are sufficient to class the formation as be- 

 longing to the Oamaru System (of Oligocene age) of Hutton's classi- 

 fication, and with the Cretaceo-Tertiary of the New Zealand 

 Geological Survey. 



In a few localities, notably in the Kaikorai stream on the north- 

 east side of Swampy Hill, and at Waikouaiti, fine shales rest upon 

 the calcareous sandstone-rocks. They are, in the former place, 

 unconformable to the marine beds below them, probably uncon- 

 formable in the second locality, and Prof. James Park has described 

 them as unconformable at Waikouaiti. 



The leaves are in a good state of preservation. A collection has 

 been placed in the hands of Mr. Deane, of Sydney, who has done 

 so much excellent work on the Tertiary flora of Australia. A 

 preliminary examination of them tended to show that, although 

 there was present an important element similar to the recent flora 

 of New Zealand, there was also another element quite different 

 from it. Prof. Park, without any identification, and relying 

 entirely upon stratigraphical evidence in the Waikouaiti section, 

 places the plant-beds in the Pliocene Period. Until Mr. Deane has 

 completed his work, it is unwise to make any more definite statement 

 than the vague assertion that the leaf-beds are of post-Oligocene age. 



At the Swampy-Hill locality the plant-shales are highly car- 

 bonaceous, and contain a considerable quantity of paraffin. 



At the Swampy-Hill and W T aikouaiti localities, a pumice or light 

 scoria-bed rests upon the leaf-beds ; and in all the three leaf-bed 

 localities, and in many others, there are beds of gravel or con- 

 glomerate lying upon the leaf-beds where present, or otherwise 

 upon other Oligocene formations or upon some lava-flows, and they 

 are in their turn covered by other lavas. 



The Kaikorai valley (Prazer's Gully) is again the most important 

 locality for the study of this formation, for the conglomerate is here 

 100 feet thick, extends over many acres, and is intersected through- 

 out by the gorge of a small stream. In this locality it is 

 conformable to the underlying leaf-beds, and is probably so at 

 Waikouaiti and Swampy Hill. In all cases where such a con- 

 glomerate has been found, it is composed of fragments of volcanic 



