PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



487 



tion is hardened and contains ironstone-nodules; these, when broken, yield 

 remains of exogenous plants. A fossil resin is found abundantly ia the lignite. 

 On Farmer's land the Hgnite is sixteen feet thick, including a little shale ; at 

 Campbell's it is seven thick, but thins away. There is some iron-pyrites in the 

 lignite, but not sufficient to deteriorate its value as a coal. Smiilar coal has 

 been found at Muddy Creek to the N.W. ; at Mokau, about one hundred miles 

 to the south ; and near new Plymouth. 



The Auckland tertiary beds are everywhere broken through by extinct vol- 

 canos, varying from two hundred to eight hundred feet in height. The craters 

 are generally scoriaceous, in a perfect condition, with a depression of the rim 

 usuSly to the north or east. There are also around the district other volcanic 

 hills, rounded, scoriaceous, more fertile than the crateriform hills, and 

 apparently of an older date. 



4. " On the Geology of the South-east part of Yancouver's Island." By 

 Hilary Bauerman, Esq., communicated by Sir R. I. Murchison, P.G.S. 



The author described, first, the metamorphic rocks which are everywhere 

 seen in the neighboui-hood of Esquimalt and Victoria ; principally dark-green 

 sandstones and shales, passing msensibly into serpentine, chlorite- schist, mica- 

 slate, and gneiss. At some places unfossibferous crystalline hniestones are 

 associated with them. Dykes of greenstone, syenite, porphyries, and trap-rocks 

 frequently penetrate the metamorphic rocks. To the westward of Esquimalt 

 black cherty limestones and red porphyry occur. 



To the north, at IS'anaiino, rocks with cretaceous fossils appear, also at 

 Comoux Island, twenty one miles north-west of Nanaimo. The fossils occur in 

 nodules, and consist of fish-scales, Nautilus, Ammonites Baculites, Lioceramus, 

 Astarte (?), Terebratula. 



Lignitiferous deposits (sandstones, grits, conglomerates, and micaceous flag- 

 stones) succeed the cretaceous rocks, and are extensively developed over a 

 great extent of country, forming the mass of the islands in the Gulf of Georgia, 

 as far south as Saturna Island. Northward they occur at Eort Hupert. Two 

 seams of coal, averaging six to eight feet each in thickness, occui' in these beds, 

 and are extensively worked for the supply of the steamers navigating between 

 Victoria and the Erazer River. The coal is a soft black lignite, interspersed 

 with small lenticular bands of bright crystalline coal, lletinite is common in 

 the more earthy portions. Shales with plaut-remams are iiiterstratified with 

 the lignite. At Bellingham Bay, on the mainland, similar coal-bearing sand- 

 stones have been observed by the American geologists. 



A pleistocene boulder-clay is widely distributed over the southern part of 

 Vancouver's Island and the opposite coasts of the mauiland. In the neighbour- 

 hood of Esquimalt and Victoria the rocks are deeply scratched and grooved 

 along the shore ; and so also is the rock-surface beneath the di-ift, which at 

 Esquimalt Harbour is about twenty feet thick, whilst it is much more at the 

 Barracks, and more than one hundred feet thick between Albert Head and 

 Esquimalt. 



November 16. — " Supplemental Observations on the Order of the Ancient 

 Stratified Rocks of the North of Scotland and their associated Eruptive Rocks." 

 By Sir R. I. Murchison, V.P.R.S., E.G.S., &c. 



These observations were founded on a joint-examination of the north-west 

 higlilands by the author and Prof. Ramsay, in the autumn of this year. Sir 

 Roderick having been anxious to verify and enlarge his previous researches in 

 Sutherland and Ross, the results of which were published in the Society's 

 Journal of August last. Professor Ramsay's examination of the country re- 

 sulted in the confirmation of the author's published views ; and in a very careful 

 working out of three important sections, which afforded distinct evidence of the 

 continuous succession and conformability of the micaceous flagstones overlying 



