GEOLOGY OF NEW ZEALAND. 443 
Port Hills gravels are distinctly interbedded with sandstones containing 
Pareora fossils, and these gravels sometimes cemented into conglo- 
merates pass inland to Lake Rotoiti, attaining in the Moutere and 
Wai-iti Hills, an elevation of 2,334 feet. The same may be seen in the 
railway cutting on the south side of Weka Pass, in Canterbury. 
The system attains an elevation of over 3,000 feet at Mt. Pleasant, 
near Lake Te Anau, and also in vallies in the centre of the New 
Zealand Alps. In the North Island it goes to 4,000 feet, between 
Napier and the Mohaka river. The rocks, although thrown into 
rolling curves, are not violently disturbed, except locally, and especially 
in the neighbourhood of volcanic rocks. In the Auckland Province 
this system lies unconformably on the Oamaru system, and in the East 
Cape district on the Turanganui series, which perhaps belongs to the 
Oamaru system. The two systems are also found to be unconformable 
in South Canterbury, and markedly so in Otago. 
About 37 per cent. of the species of fossil Mollusca and Brachiopoda 
belonging to this system are recent. Remains of a porpoise have been 
found at Awamoa, near Oamaru. Large species of Cucculea, Cardium 
spatiosum, and Turbo superbus suggest a warmer sea, but with these 
lived several species which are now found as far south as Foveaux 
Straits. Fossil plants are numerous near Tapanui, in Otago. 
Marine beds. belonging to the Wanganwi system have been proved 
by paleontological evidence only in the southern half of the North 
Island, from Patea and Wanganui on Cook Strait (Putiki series) to 
-Waipawa (Kereru series) and Hawkes Bay (Petane series). There can 
be no doubt however, that the sytem also occurs at Poverty Bay 
(Ormond series), at Taranaki, round Manakau Harbour, on the west 
side of Whangarei Harbour, and at various other places in the Province 
of Auckland. In the South Island, the marine beds of the north 
appear to be represented by thick beds of unfossiliferous gravels, whick 
are very difficult to distinguish from the upper gravels of the Pareora 
system. 
These beds rest unconformably on the Pareora system in the 
western part of the Wellington Province, and also in Hawkes Bay, 
wherever the junction has been seen. The marine beds attain an 
elevation of more than 2,000 feet, near Napier. I have elsewhere 
given reasons for concluding that the former great extension of our 
glaciers was caused by greater elevation of the land, during the interval 
between the Pareora system and the marine beds of the Wanganui 
system. As these marine beds are only fossiliferous in the North 
Island, where there are no glacier marks, it is not possible to get direct 
evidence of this, but in Otago the old Taieri moraine between Lake 
Waihola and the sea, which forms low-rounded hills between 400 and 
500 feet high, is on the seaward side, covered nearly to the top by 
moraine gravels, which may belong to this system, or may be younger. 
The fossils of this system are very different from those of the last; from 
70 to 90 per cent. of the species of Mollusca and brachiopoda are recent. 
Raised Beaches ( Pleistocene Period ).—At the mouth of the River 
Thames, near Auckland, there is a raised beach 10 or 12 feet in height, 
containing marine shells, and at the north end of Manukau Harbour a 
well-cut beach terrace is seen at about the same altitude. Below the 
