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 in tlie lignite. 
On Farmer's land tlic lignite is sixteen feet thick, including a little shale ; at 
Campbell's it is seven thick, but thins away. There is some iron-pyrites in tiic 
ligniti!, but not sufficient to deteriorate its value as a coal. Similar coal has 
been found at Muddy Creek to the N.W. ; at Mokau, about one hundred mOes 
to the soutli ; and near new Plymouth. 
The Auckland tertiary beds arc everywhere broken throngli by cxt inct vol- 
canos, varying from two hundred to eight hundred feet in height. The craters 
are generally seoriaceons, in a perfect condition, with a depression of the rim 
usually to the north or east. There are also aroimd the district other volcanic 
liills, rounded, scoriaeeous, more fertile than the erateriform liiUs, and 
apparently of an older date. 
4. " On the Geology of the South-east part of Vancouver's Island." By 
Hilary Bauerman, Esq., communicated by Sir R. I. Murchison, F.G.S. 
The author described, first, the metamorpliic rocks which are everywhere 
seen in the neighbourhood of Esquimalt and Victoria ; principally dark-gi-een 
sandstones and shales, passing insensibly uito serpentine, clilorite-schist, mica- 
slate, and gneiss. At some places unfossiliferous crystalline limestones are 
associated with them. Dykes of greenstone, syenite, porphyries, and tra[)-roeks 
frequently penetrate the metamorpliic rocks. To the westward of Esquimalt 
black cherty limestones and red porphyry occur. 
To the; north, at Nanaimo, rocks with cretaceous fossils appear, also at 
Comoux Islaud, twenty one miles north-west of Nanaimo. The fossils occur in 
nodules, and consist of fish-scales, Nautilus, Ammonites Baculites, Inoceramus, 
Astarte (?), Terebratula. 
Lignitifcrous 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 Rupert. Two 
seams of coal, averaging six to eight feet each in thickness, occur 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 bauds of bright erystaUiue coal. Retinite is common in 
the more earthy portions. Shales witli plant-remains are interstratified with 
the lignite. At Bellingham Bay, on the mainland, similar coal-bearing sand- 
stones have been observed by the American geologists. 
A pleistocene boulder-elay is widely distributed over the southern part of 
Vancouver's Island and the opposite coasts of the mainland. 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 chift, which at 
Esquimalt Harbour is about twenty feet thick, whilst it is much more at the 
Barracks, and more than one hundred feet tliick between Albert tiead 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., F.G.S., &c. 
These observations were founded on a joint-examination of the north-west 
highlands by the author and Prof. Rfimsay, 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 ,vere 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 couformability of the micaceous flagstones overlying 
