1920 .] 
Departmental Report. 
175 
west of the railway, and at one place the coal, 4 ft. thick, was worked a few 
years ago by the Public Works Department in order to supply fuel to the 
men employed on railway-construction. The seam here strikes about 220°, 
and dips steeply to the north of west. A barometer-reading at a point 
where coal outcrops gave a height of 1,860 ft. 
Low down on the northern slope of No Man’s Land, at a barometric 
height of 2,160 ft., sandstones and a band of shell conglomerate outcrop. 
These beds have a dip of from 30° to 40° to the north. At one place the 
conglomerate is composed almost entirely of oyster-shells, apparently the 
“ black oyster ” mentioned by Hector and McKay in various old geological 
reports. 
The area of the patch of coal-measures north of No Man’s Land cannot 
be stated until a careful survey is made, but it certainly exceeds a square 
mile. Several hundred acres of the area may possibly contain workable 
coal, but this has to be proved or disproved by boring or some other method 
of prospecting. 
Structure an d Faulting of Coal-measures. 
In the course of my short visit it was impossible to ascertain the 
structure of the coal-bearing rocks with any degree of exactness. In this 
connection the most striking feature is the manner in which the patches of 
coal-measures have been preserved by down-faulting and warping. Several 
important faults strike east of north. Two such faults have apparently 
determined the boundaries of the Broken River coal-measures. So far as 
can be judged from a distant view, an east-and-west fault at the foot of 
Mount Torlesse there cuts off the southern extension of the southerly-dipping 
coal-bearing rocks. To the north these terminate by erosion high on the 
slopes of No Man’s Land, but reappear low down on the northern slopes 
with a northerly dip. Careful field-work will easily determine many 
important faults and other structural features with a fair degree of accuracy, 
and in the meantime it is not advisable to attempt a detailed description 
that must in some respects be inaccurate or at least incomplete. 
Note. —Since the above report was written Mr. R. Speight has published a full 
account of the Broken River district in this Journal, vol. 3, No. 2, April, 1920, and the 
present issue, under the title of “ The Geological Features of the Broken River Coal 
Area.” 
UNIVERSITY AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
Dominion Museum. 
Ethnographical Explorations. 
The collecting and recording of Maori songs, games, industrial tasks, &c., 
by means of the dictaphone and moving-picture camera is a new activity 
in New Zealand, and one that will apparently be successful in preserving 
a considerable amount of ethnographical data. The interesting results 
obtained at the native meeting at Gisborne last year (1919) led to the 
despatch of a similar small party to Rotorua in April last, in order to 
take advantage of the sojourn thereat of nearly six thousand natives in 
connection with the visit of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. On the whole 
