410 Geology of 



partially removed according to the prevailing winds. If we examine 

 the different belts of vegetable life following each other with snch dis- 

 tinctness, as we go inland, additional evidence is offered that consider- 

 able time was necessary to change the Coprosma-acerosa belt into the 

 scrub-belt, and a still longer period had to elapse for the formation of 

 a sufficient thickness of vegetable mould to allow the forest-trees to 

 grow to such large dimensions. In the same forest, many and larger 

 trees are lying prostrate on the ground, and in all stages of decay ; 

 sometimes their former existence being indicated only by long mossy 

 ridges, so that we may safely conclude that the present forest vege- 

 tation is not the first one, but that it was preceded by trees of the 

 same species, and often of large dimensions, formerly growing there. 



In one of the claims in this last described forest-belt, on the bottom 

 of the wash-dirt, reposing directly upon the argillaceous gravel, a party 

 of miners, consisting of S. Fiddean, J. Sawyer, and T. Harrison, found 

 a stone chisel and a sharpening-stone lyiDg close to eaeh other ; the 

 former was broken, having been accidentally struck by the pick when 

 the miners were loosening the wash-dirt. The stone chisel is made of 

 a dark greenish chert, and is partly polished ; the sharpening-stone is 

 formed of a coarse greyish sandstone, which I found in situ about ten 

 miles south of this locality, near the mouth of the river Paringa. 

 The two stone implements now in the Canterbury 3Iuseum, were 

 found a few days before my arrival, and it was quite accidentally in 

 looking at the claim that I heard of their discovery. 



I measured carefully the distance from high-water mark to the exact 



spot where they were discovered, and found it to be 525 feet, crossing 



the different belts as follows: — 



feet. 



First, or drift-wood belt 63 



Second, or Coprosma-acerosa belt 95 



Third, or Coriaria belt 330 



Fourth, or White-pine belt 37 



525 



The beds through which the miners had been working were quite 

 undisturbed, and some very large trees had been growing just above 

 that portion of their claim near the centre of which these stone imple- 

 ments had been found. Owing to the dense forest covering the ground 

 everywhere on the west coast of this island, these beaches are generally 

 used for travelling, the favourable time of the receding tides being 

 selected. I can easily imagine, therefore, how these stone implements 



