Canterbury and Westland. 309 



country, is situated at the head of the northern Hinds (the so-called 

 Limestone range), where the same succession o£ beds was also observed 

 by me. On the southern banks of the Kangitata, at Coal Creek, the 

 succession of the strata is the same, with the exception that the 

 lowest beds are formed of lignite overlaid by greensands. 



In advancing still more to the south, the Oamaru formation is 

 largely developed, and gives to the country, by the conformation of 

 the calcareous greensands usually constituting the uppermost beds, 

 its peculiar features, namely, soft outlines where this uppermost bed 

 has not been cut into, and rocky precipices and cliffs along the 

 banks of the rivers and their tributaries. It is easily seen that the 

 Oamaru formation usually conforms to the outlines of the underlying 

 palaeozoic rocks. 



The following is the sequence of the beds on the southern banks of 

 the Kakahu : — The lowest bed consists of shales about 10 feet thick 3 

 often arenaceous with imperfect impressions of dicotyledonous leaves. 

 In some localities it becomes more argillaceous and is formed of valuable 

 fireclays. A seam of Brown coal of inferior quality, 20 inches thick, 

 and full of concretions of iron pyrites, lies above it, and is capped 

 by 18 feet of shales, after which a similar seam of Brown coal, 17 

 inches thick, follows — dip east-north-east 15°. Upon it very dark 

 greensands repose, divided in several layers by more calcareous beds in 

 variegated colours, partly green and partly brown. Above them follows 

 a bed of about two inches thick, formed entirely of Turbinolia, then 

 more greensands, 30 to 40 feet thick, upon which a sandy limestone 

 follows containing a number of fossils, amongst them Cucullcea alta, 

 (Sowerby), Pectunculus globosus (Hutton), Turritella ambulacrum 

 (Sowerby), and a number of others which seem to be undescribed, as no 

 mention of them is made in Hutton's catalogue of Tertiary Mollusca 

 of New Zealand. These greensands sometimes contain fossil wood 

 quite honeycombed by toredos. They gradually get lighter and more 

 calcareous, till they are succeeded by chalk marls and calcareous green- 

 sands, of which the upper bed is sometimes full of harder glauconitic 

 concretions, or it is divided by layers of similar composition into 

 smaller banks. Only in the Upper Kakahu, and on the banks of the 

 Waihi, concretions (Septaria), similar to those of the "Waipara, are 

 found, accompanied by fine specimens of Ostrea Wuellersdorfi, but 

 hitherto no fossils of any importance have been obtained from them. 

 Finally, I wish to give the general characteristic features of another 



