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XIV.— On the Tertiary Coals of New Zealand. By W. Lauder Lindsay, M.D., 

 F.L.S., &c, Honorary Fellow of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 

 New Zealand. 



(Read 20tli February 1865.) 



Coal deposits of Tertiary age have now been found more or less throughout the 

 two great islands (north and south) of New Zealand. They are best known, and 

 they have been chiefly worked, however, in the provinces of Otago, Nelson, Canter- 

 bury, and Auckland. Their apparent more meagre development in other provinces 

 is probably simply due to the circumstance that the latter have not, as yet, been so 

 thoroughly explored or so extensively colonised and peopled as the others. The 

 explorations, however, of provincial and geological surveyors, of prospecting gold- 

 miners and sheep-owners, and of other pioneers of civilisation, are daily adding to 

 the number of the known coal-fields of New Zealand ; and it is probably not going 

 too far to assert, in general terms, that the whole area of its two great islands is 

 studded over with coal-basins of various extent, depth, age, and quality of coal. 



In Otago the following are the districts which possess coal-fields or basins of 

 Tertiary age : — 



1. District between Dunedin (the capital) and the Taeri plains ; including 



especially what I may designate the Saddlehill or Greenisland Basin ; 

 and the Silverstream valley. 



2. Tokomairiro valley; a. Upper (Woolshed), and b. Lower (Tokomairiro 



gorge). 



3. Great valley of the Clutha river — 



a. Upper (Dunstan, Kawarau, and Manuherikia districts ; Cromwell, 



Clyde, and Alexandra townships). 



b. Middle (Teviot, Tuapeka, and Waitahuna districts ; Laurence and 



Wetherstone's townships). 



c. Lower (Kaitangata and Coal Point). 



4. Valley of the Upper Taeri and Shag river — 



a. Upper (Mount Ida or Highlay district). 



b. Lower (Shag or Vulcan Point). 



5. Valleys or beds of the Waitaki and Waikawa rivers ; Otepopo &c. ; 



all mostly in the central and eastern districts. 



These localities include, fortunately for the gold-mining interest, the great 

 gold-fields of Tuapeka, Dunstan, and Mount Ida or Highlay ; and, as a general 



VOL. XXIV. PART I. 2 Z 



