440 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
Hamilton. This is the best locality for making out the series of rocks: 
forming the system, a work which has been ably accomplished by Mr. 
S. H. Cox. 
The rocks are principally blue slate, and green and brown 
sandstones, with beds of conglomerate sometimes passing into breccias. 
Limestones are found only in the Malvern Hills. In the lower series. 
beds of greenstone ash occur, and in the upper thin seams of coal. It 
is a littoral formation, plant remains being found throughout, The 
thickness has been estimated at between 20,000 and 25,000 feet in 
Southland. The system is undoubtedly unconformable to the Maitai 
system, but it-is not easy to get good sections to prove this. The best 
is perhaps in the Takitimo Mountains, in Southland. In no place, 
however, is it known to rest on rocks older than the Maitai system. 
The Kaihiku series forms the base of the system, but fossils are 
rare in it. Remains of what appears to be an Ichthyosaurns have been 
found near Mt. Potts, in Canterbury. Dr. Hector considers this series 
as of Permian age, at the same time remarking the absence of ‘the 
usual Paleozoic elements of a Permian fauna,” and, I may add, of a 
Permian flora. The Wairoa series is well characterized by its fossils ; 
among the latter is a species of Dammara, to which genus the modern 
Kauri belongs. The Mataura series also contains several characteristic 
fossils, including Ammonites and Belemnites, and among the ferns a 
Polypodium and an Asplenium. 
In the South Island the Waipara system extends, with a few 
interruptions, from Cape Campbell to Mt. Somers in South Canterbury 
(Amuri series) ; and an isolated patch occurs in the Trelissick basin on 
the Upper Waimakariri. In Otago it includes the coal measures of 
Shag Point and the. Horse Range (Matakea series) ; as also the coal of 
Mt. Hamilton, and possibly a small patch on the north shore of Lake _ 
Wakatipu. In the Nelson Province it includes the coal measures of 
Pakawau, and the bituminous coals of the Buller and Grey. In 
the North Island the system has been recognized on the East Coast of 
Wellington, and it apparently covers a large extent of country in the 
Waiapu district, near the East. Cape, in which oil-springs are found,. 
and again on the Wairoa River, north of Kaipara Harbour. But 
until the fossils from these North Island localities have been carefully 
compared with those from the typical districts at Amuri and Waipara 
in the South Island, it is impossible to feel quite certain about their 
age. 
In the typical district remains of marine Saurians belonging to the 
genera Plesiosawrus, Mauisaurus, Taniwhasaurus, Polycotylus, and 
Liodon have been found, together with numerous molluscs. The plants. 
found at the base of the system at Waipara are chiefly dicotyledonous. 
angiosperms aud Dammara. From Pakawau Dr. Hochstetter obtained 
Lquisetes, along with other plant remains. Mr. A. McKay also 
mentions finding a skeleton, apparently reptilian, at Lake Wakatipu, 
from which « fragments of a jaw with long slender J lesa like 
teeth” were obtained. 
The thickness of the system at Amuri Bluff is omihiel by Mr. 
McKay at about 1,600 feet. I considered the Matakea series at Shag 
Point to be between 6,000 and 7,000 feet. The strata are usually 
