Canterbury and West-land. 305 



Rakaia, six miles "below the gorge, and well known to the settlers of 

 this Province for years past as a favourable locality for collecting 

 fossils. We find also south of the Rakaia, strata belonging to the same 

 system, where the Taylor branch of the Ashburton enters the plains, 

 and meet with them still more largely developed on both banks of the 

 southern Ashburton, as well as near the sources of the northern Hinds. 

 They also fringe the Canterbury plains from the Orari to the Kakabu, 

 after which they cover a considerable extent of country, from the middle 

 course of the Opihi north to the Otaio south. Another large zone 

 extends along the middle course of the Waihao branches, and along 

 both banks of the lower "Waitaki. During the deposition of this 

 formation, the land sank so considerably that we find now within the 

 alpine ranges beds belonging to it, as high as 5000 feet above the 

 present sea-level. Moreover, it is evident that at one time, wherever 

 favourable chances prevailed, deposits belonging to that formation 

 must have been formed all along the eastern slopes of our Alps, 

 because in many spots small outliers (which have escaped the general 

 destruction) belonging to this formation, have been preserved. Of 

 these localities, those of the Esk, in the Broken River basin west of 

 Mount Torlesse, on both sides of Lake Heron, in the River Potts 

 (east of Mount Potts), between the upper Opuha and Opihi, and near, 

 -fche sources of the Hakataramea, are the most important ones. The 

 Oamaru formation seems to be entirely absent from Westland. 



Sequence and Character oe the Rocks ; Position of Strata. 

 The beds belonging to the Oamaru formation resemble often in 

 sequence and character of the rocks those of the preceding Waipara 

 formation. They in most instances begin also with littoral deposits, 

 and end with calcareous strata, the latter formed in deeper water. 

 In the northern and middle portions of Canterbury earthy carbonaceous 

 deposits are sometimes associated with them, the lowest beds generally 

 consisting of quartzose sands more or less glauconitic; in the 

 southern portion the formation begins usually with white under-clays, 

 upon which one or several seams of Brown coal have been deposited, 

 some of which will be of economic importance in the future. Above 

 these Brown Coal Measures the further sequence of the beds is nearly 

 the same everywhere. In order to make this more obvious, I shall here 

 enumerate the sequence of the beds in some of the principal localities 

 as they follow each other. On the banks of the Waipara the following 

 sequence is exposed to our view. 



