PROCEEDINGS OP GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
145 
charred wood, Maori stone hatchets, or "celts" of clinkstone, Lydian stone, 
or nephrite, eggs and bones of moa mostly long bones, bones of man, 
native dog, seal, fish, and various birds — mostly existing species pen- 
guin, albatross, rail, apteryx, etc. ; bones partly charred, calcined, gnawed, 
broken, or marked by stone hatchets. 
VIII. Insufficient data for accurate chronological grouping of rocks of 
Otago, arising, first, from a great portion of province remaining to be ex- 
plored, and the very limited portion of settled districts yet geologically 
examined, and those only superficially; and secondly, from the difficulty of 
determining European equivalents, and thereby age, in the present un- 
satisfactory state of geological classification and nomenclature. 
IX. Provisional chronology of chief rocks of Otago, as known to the 
close of 18GI. 1. Eecent, superficial alluvium, brick-clays, certain moa-bone 
deposits. 2. Cainozoic, auriferous drift, upper and lower ; lignite beds and 
associated strata, certain volcanic (Trappean) rocks, fossiliferous limestones, 
and clays, septaria beds of Moeraki, moa-bone and kauri-gum deposits. 
3. Mesozoic, certain fossiliferous limestones. 4. Palaeozoic, mctamorphic 
slates, quartziferous and auriferous, possibly certain fossiliferous lime- 
stones, etc. The preponderance of strata were of the Palaeozoic and Caino- 
zoic age, especially of the auriferous slates and their *' drifts.'' 
Manchester Philosophical Society. — March 11. — Mr. Crookcs, 
F.C.S., exhibited a specimen, weighing 450 grains, of the new metal, thal- 
lium, which he discovered by spectrum analysis. He stated that he had 
found this element in comparatively large quantities in the deposit from 
the flues of Mr. Spence's pyrites burners. E. W. Binney, F.E.S., the 
President, said that of late years considerable attention had been devoted 
to the examination of the beds of sand and gravel found in the valleys 
formed since the deposition of the till or boulder clay. Sir Charles Lyell, 
in his valuable work 'On the Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man,' 
has given us many facts connected with these valley gravels, especially re- 
lating to the terraces of the higher and lower level gravels found in the 
valley of the Somme, in which the flint implements have been met with. 
As these two deposits are seen in the neiglibourhood of Manchester, he 
wished to direct attention to all excavations that were being made in them, 
in order that any remains or implements which might be met with should 
be preserved. Doubtless, many interesting specimens have perished, owing 
to the parties finding them being ignorant of their value. Many years 
since, a former member of this society, the late Mr. F. Looney, F.Gr.S., in 
speaking of the superficial gravel found in this neighbourhood, at p. 23,* 
says : " Imbedded in the gravel near the river-courses are occasionally 
found the stone celts of the ancients, from which it is presumed that the 
rivers, since the country was inhabited, have either sawn their beds deeper 
or much exceeded their present volume of water. Several large trees have 
been dug up from the sand and gravel ; part of one is now lying near the 
residence of the Eev. J. Clowes, at Kersal Moor, which was dug from the 
Show Field on his estate, at upwards of 23 feet elevation above the present 
level of the river. A case more illustrative of this was beautifully shown 
in the winter of 1820, during the cutting away of part of the high ground 
at Castlefield, near the tunnel mouth, for 16 feet below the level of tho 
grass a wooden box was found. It was square and formed of four upright 
{)osts, driven into a bed of clay ; the sides and bottom were closed in with 
ogs of wood : the logs were rudely hewn, had been riven, not sawn, from 
* 'List of Organic Remains,' etc., and where found, to accompany Mr. Ellas Hall's In- 
troduction and Map, by Mr. I'rancis Looney, member of the Literary and Philosophical 
Society of Manchester, published in 1836. 
YOL. YI. U 
