Canterbury and Westland. 249 



CHAPTER III. 



STKATIGKAPHICAL GEOLOGY. 



General Synopsis and Description of Geological Formations, 



Owing to the present still very unsatisfactory state of the classification 

 of the stratified rocks in New Zealand, which, instead of being cleared 

 up, has, especially with regard to the older beds, of late years become 

 more entangled by constant alterations in the nomenclature — some of 

 the most important beds, for instance, having repeatedly been shifted 

 from younger palaeozoic or older mesozoic to cretaceo-tertiary, and 

 vice versa — I should only add to the confusion in which the matter has 

 been left, were I to go outside the provinces with which I am specially 

 acquainted, to make comparisons with fossiliferous districts in other 

 parts of New Zealand, and to try to co-relate our older fossiliferous 

 beds with those in all other provinces. I shall therefore confine myself , 

 in this synoptical part, to giving a general description, adding a list of 

 the principal fossils contained in each, and a short tabular statement, 

 in which I shall try to co -relate the arrangement of Professor Hutton 

 with my own.* 



More than ten years ago, when intending to send a large series of 

 fossils, mostly from our older beds, from Mount Potts, Clent Hills, 

 "Waipara, and Malvern Hills, to Europe, to be described by a 

 Palaeontologist of high position, the Director of the Colonial Geological 

 Survey requested me not to do so, assuring me that he would obtain, 

 at an early date, the assistance of a first-class palaeontologist, and, 

 in order not to complicate matters or to interfere with the work of the 



* If the reader wishes to know something more ahout the matter, I wish to refer him to 

 Professor Hutton's " Geology of Otago," Section II. Pre-rious Obserrers, page 12. 



