Geological Survey of Canterbury. 153 



younger sedimentary beds is exhibited in a very remarkable manner, I 

 devoted some time. It is here, near the so-called Rampaddock, that 

 the remains of saurians occur in different localities, imbedded in septaria 

 concretions. Owing to the want of proper tools, I could only 

 collect a. few of these remarkable remains, washed out of some 

 of these calcareous concretions, which had been accidentally split. 

 However, the real position of these saurian beds was fixed, and a great 

 number of fossils were collected in the different beds underlying and 

 overlying them. A few days were devoted to the source branches of 

 the Kowai, and to Mount Grey, where several seams of brown coal 

 were examined, after which the Okuku, a branch of the Ashley river, 

 was followed for some distance. In this stream, where it enters the 

 Canterbury plains, the oldest tertiary rocks are well exposed ; on the 

 other hand, in the front ranges, a succession of fine wooded gorges 

 offers to the geologist a number of beautiful sections of the palceozoic 

 sedimentary rocks. Here the peculiar tabular sandstones, covered 

 with fucoid impressions, occur, which I have met with in many 

 localities all over the province, and, amongst others, on the eastern 

 slopes of Mount Cook. I also examined the rocks, where fine building 

 stones of the same character as the Oamaru stone form perpendicular 

 cliffs, and where now the White Eock quarries have been opened. 

 Another day was devoted to the Moeraki Downs, a large young tertiary 

 outlier enclosing small layers of inferior lignite, round which, during 

 and shortly after the Great Glacier period, the "Waimakariri, joined 

 near the Ashley gorge by that river, at one time flowed. Standing on 

 a fine autumn afternoon on the summit of these downs, it was with 

 difficulty that I could tear myself away from the smiling landscape 

 around me ; the whole country as far as the eye could reach being 

 dotted with farms of various sizes. In every direction cattle, 

 horses, and sheep were feeding, the whole showing healthy progress 

 of the province. 



My next trip brought me on April the 27th, into the Upper Ashley 

 plains, which can only be reached by crossing Mount Lee, the range 

 which runs from Mount Thomas to the gorge of the Ashley. Mount 

 Lee is covered within 200 feet of its summit, with beech forest, above 

 which a luxuriant sub-alpine vegetation succeeds it. The bridle-path 

 follows a leading spur from near the banks of the G-ary, and 

 occasionally offers charming views on both sides into deep wooded 

 valleys, or over the wide cultivated Canterbury plains. The summit, 

 3482 feet above the sea level, once reached, a really fine and extensive 



