1870. ] HOOD—WAIPARA RIVER. 409 
3. GroLoeicaL Osservartons on the Warpara River, New Zeaanp. 
By T. H. Cocxsurn Hoop, Esq., F.G.S. 
In 1859, whilst travelling in the Province of Canterbury, I dis- 
covered certain beds underlying the Waipara tertiaries, which I 
referred at the time to the Liassic series, and obtained from the bed 
of the River Waipara bones of an Enaliosaurian, which were placed in 
the British Museum, and which were recognized by Professor Owen as 
belonging to a new species of Plesiosaur, named by him P. australis. 
Returning to the colony after ten years’ absence, I found that 
a survey of that province had been completed by the Government 
Geologist, Dr. Haast, whilst the northern and southern portions of 
the Middle Island had been explored by that accurate and painstaking 
observer Dr. Hector. The Canterbury and Wellington museums 
afford interesting evidence of their careful labours: in the latter a 
collection of fossils from Triassic deposits of the Nelson Province is 
placed ; and an excellent one adorns the former, from the Tertiary 
beds of the Waipara and other adjacent districts, which crop out 
here and there from beneath the vast accumulations of Postpliocene 
gravels. 
With the exception of some small fragments of bones (ribs chiefly) 
of Reptilian origin, nothing appeared to have been found to assist in 
determining the species of the antipodean monsters. I determined 
therefore to make as thorough an exploration of the wild ravines of 
the Waipara as possible, with the assistance of my friend Mr. Innes, 
who is the proprietor of the Mount-Brown estate, under the base of 
which the river here runs, and who had taken much interest in col- 
lecting specimens. 
A portion of this singularly broken country consists of a plain two 
miles and a half wide by about three miles in length, which appears 
at one time to have formed a lake (Fig. 1); the surface is now varied 
by a number of circular lagoons of some depth. The river and its 
affluents, which encircle this area, have cut their beds down through 
the lower Tertiary limestones and Septaria clays to the depth of 
many hundred feet ; and the Upper Crag has been removed by denu- 
dation. The Cretaceous limestone, which affords an excellent 
building-material, is distinguished by a great abundance of a peculiar 
cup-shaped Bryozoon and remains of Echinoderms, and contains 
many Cetacean bones. 
After some days spent in examining the deposits in the broad 
river-bed and that of the tributary flowing through the fantastically 
broken gorge shown in the sketch, we returned with a considerable 
quantity of bones, chiefly of Plestosawrus (ribs, iliums, ischium, cora- 
coid and digital bones), obtained from the intensely hard crystalline 
boulders (many weighing several tons), which I came to the con- 
clusion were of an older date than the marly clay in which they are 
imbedded, haying probably fallen from the cliffs on the shore of the 
Hocene sea, which, for some reason, was apparently destitute of life ; 
the nucleus of all we succeeded in breaking was either a Saurian’s 
bone, a Gryphea, or a mass of calcareous spar. Nearly all contain 
great quantities of fucoids. 
VOL. XXVI.—PART I. 2F 
