34 The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. [Jan. 
The supposed occurrence of Inoceramus was indeed a stumbling-block 
to a belief in the Carboniferous or Permo-Carboniferous age of the Maitai 
Series, but this has happily been removed by Trechmann,* who has 
shown that it is to be referred to Aphanaia, a characteristic genus of 
the Australian Permo-Carboniferous. It is now reasonable to believe that 
Permo-Carboniferous (or Permian) rocks occur in various localities where 
McKay has found the .Dun Mountain “ Inoceramus or Aphanaia , as it 
may now be called. Brief references to these and other localities will almost 
complete this paper. 
1. At Taylor’s Pass, south of Blenheim, there are fossiliferous lime¬ 
stones containing “ fragments of Inoceramus shells,” which McKay doubt¬ 
fully referred to the Maitai Series.']* 
2. The greywackes and argillites between the Cass and Bealey contain 
nests or lenticular patches of dark-grey compact limestone. From a 
block of this limestone McKay obtained a single fossil shell which was 
imperfect, but showed a fibrous structure, and was referred by him with 
some confidence to the “ Dun Mountain Inoceramus .”J The locality is 
defined more exactly as a spur of the Black Range which separates the 
Cass River from the Upper Waimakariri.§ 
It is obvious that the marbles of the Malvern Hills, seen near Frank’s 
Knob and the Four Points Range, deserve careful examination in order 
to ascertain whether or not they contain Aphanaia or other Permo- 
Carboniferous fossils. 
3. McKay states that near Station Peak, not far from the junction 
of the Hakataramea and the Waitaki Rivers, calcareous slates occur 
which in many places contain broken Inoceramus shells. One specimen 
of the fossil seen by him showed as a cast on a face of slate in 
situ, and exhibited concentric plications and a wide and straight 
hinge-line. ”|| 
4. On the Otago side of the Waitaki River, a mile west of the junction 
of the Kurow River, a tract of hilly country four miles long by three in 
breadth begins. The rocks are “ mostly sandstones and dark slates, the 
latter in places having abundance of Inoceramus shell-fragments.”|| 
5. In 1903 Professor James Park discovered fossiliferous rocks at 
Mount St. Mary, which is a little to the south-west of the last-mentioned 
locality The fossils collected by Park were submitted to Hutton, who came 
to the conclusion that they included various forms characteristic of the 
Permo-Carboniferous of New South Wales. This opinion * § was confirmed 
by W. S. Dun.^J Later a collection was sent to Professor G. Boehm, of 
Freiburg, but no report appears ever to have been published. In 1910, 
without giving any new reason, Park referred the Mount St. Mary beds to 
the Permo-Triassic.** C. T. Trechmann, however, in a recent letter to 
* C. T. Trechmann, The Age of the Maitai Series of New Zealand, Geol. Mag., 
dec. vi, vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 53-64, Feb. 1917. 
f Alex. McKay, On the Geology of Marlborough and the Amuri District of Nelson, 
Rep. of Geol. Explor. during 1888-89 , No. 20, pp. 116, 139-40, 1890. 
J Alex. McKay, On the Older Sedimentary Rocks of Ashley and Amuri Counties, 
Rep. of Geol. Explor. during 1879-80, No. 13, p. 88, 1881. 
§ McKay, loc. cit., p. 87. 
I! Alex. McKay, Geology of the Waitaki Valley and Parts of Vincent and Lake 
Counties, Rep. of Geol. Explor. during 1881, No. 13, p. 78, 1882. 
^ James Park, loc. cit., p. 450, 1904. 
** James Park, Geology of New Zealand, p. 68, 1910. 
