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lages of the natives are seen upon it , and here and there a small 
remnant of woods is still standing. Characteristic of this second 
terrace is — since the river-bed does not rise towards South in 
the same proportion as the plains of the Waikato basin — that up 
the river it rises higher and higher, until finally a third terrace 
is inserted between the first and second stories. 
The geological features are extremely simple , and seem to 
remain the same through the entire middle Waikato basin. As 
lowest bed there appear layers of clay and sand with bituminous 
shale, which in some places enclose trunks of trees changed to 
lignite. Few miles above Karakariki the shale passes over into thin 
beds of argillaceous shale containing numerous fossil plants. They, 
however, would not admit of being gathered, the mass crumbling 
two readily. Worthy of notice are also some sporadic pumice-stone 
fragments, which are found embedded in it. These and similar 
strata seem to point to the fact that the whole middle Waikato 
basin was but recently a shallow bay of the sea, or a far extending 
estuary, at the bottom and on the margins of which those layers 
were formed. The topmost layer consists of gravel and sand- 
banks, for which pumice-stone, obsidian and various volcanic rocks 
have furnished the principal material. The sand contains moreover 
large quantities of magnetic iron , and small quartz-crystals as 
clear as water, originating partly from pumice-stone, partly from 
trachytic rocks (rhyolite). These quaternary layers of gravel and 
sand compose the broad plains of the second terrace , while upon 
the first river-terrace recent river-alluvium is deposited. A similar 
terrace-formation recurs with all the rivers of the middle Waikato 
basin. On the Waikato itself the terraces commence already below 
Ivirikiriroa, on the Waiho in the vicinity of Mount Aroha. 
About noon we halted by the Maori-village Whatawhata. Here 
I met a native Austrian, C. L. Strauss, who, he told me, had 
formerly been a Government official in Triest. By what adverse fates 
he was cast upon the shores of Now Zealand, I do not know. 
He has been living among the natives for the last twenty years, 
and is married to a Maori-princess , a near relative to King Potatau, 
