To the older subdivision, belong the lignite beds of Drury, Auckland; the strata of Whangaroa and Aotea harbours, in the Northern Island, and the extensive beds, associated with brown coal, which stretch, with little interruption, from Cape Farewell to the mouth of the Grey, and without doubt, even still farther down into our Province, overlying unconformably the carboniferous beds of secondary age, at the Buller and Grey rivers.

There are many species of pecten, terebratula, Waldheimia, Scalaria, Struthiolaria, as well as many species of Echinida, as for instance Brisius eximius, Schizaster rotundatus, Hemipatagus formosus (Zittel), by which we may easily distinguish the older subdivision from the younger, of which the strata of Hawke’s Bay, in the North Island, and the valley of the Awatere, in the Middle Island, are the most clearly defined.

The greater portion of the species in the latter strata are extinct, as for instance Ostrea ingens, Pecten Triphooki, Crassatella ampla, Dentalium Mantelli, Turbo superbus, Natica Denisoni, Struthiolaria, canaliculata (Zittel), but there are also some species amongst them which are identical with living ones, of which I may name Voluta pacifica (Sol.), Purpura textiliosa (Lam.), and Trochita dilatata (Quoi).

In both sub-divisions teeth of the Lamna species are met with.

But there are also some intermediate links which seem to connect these subdivisions; amongst them the large beds of Motupipi stand in close connection with the older subdivision in which Pecten athleta, Pecten Burnettii (Zittel), and some others, occur very frequently.

The extensive tertiary and lignitiferous beds on the eastern side of our Province are also of an intermediate character, although they incline more towards the younger subdivision. As we may soon expect a complete description of these fossils, by professor McCoy, of Melbourne, it would be presumptuous to attempt to anticipate the valuable labours of this eminent palaeontologist.

But I may here state, that in our Province, we meet with not only littoral but also pelagic beds, in which several fossils of the older group occur, as well as many of the younger one; besides fossil bones of cetacea, and teeth of Lamna, Oxyrhina, and Carcharias.

The knowledge of our fossiliferous beds is not yet sufficiently advanced for us to be able to state with certainty which of the species are extinct, and to assign to the different beds their correct ages, by classifying them according to their fossils.

Owing to the usually soft nature of the tertiary beds, they have in many instances disappeared, partly by erosion and partly by other causes, amongst which the glaciation of this island, during the post pliocene period, ranks foremost; and in fact, if we examine the portion of the remaining tertiary beds, we may observe that not only are they generally protected by an upper stratum of unusual hardness, but at the same time they are mostly situated in such localities as to diminish the action of glacial coverings, or of the enormous glaciers of the postpliocene period.

Bearing in mind this important fact, we may easily understand the reason that no tertiary deposits are to be found in the main channels of the present rivers.

The tremendous glaciers above referred to have not only excavated the loose tertiary strata, but have furrowed deeply into the hard palaeozoic rocks beneath, forming, in this manner, below our present glaciers, such broad and straight shingle river valleys, as to make those of the European Alps and even of the Himalayas sink into insignificance when compared to them.

The extensive lignite beds which are situated at the foot of the eruptive ranges near Mount Somers (Trip’s coal), are preserved, like the Motupipi coal, by a hard bed of magnificent flaggy limestone and the lignite bed of the Malvern Hills, by a capping of compact doleritic rocks.*

The fossils in the former beds show that they have been deposited in deep water, whilst those of the latter have all the characteristics of littoral origin; a large species of Astrea, some of the single shells often two inches thick, being the principal fossil, although Natica, Voluta, and many others are also abundant. The tertiary basin at the head of McFarlane’s stream is also an outlier of this extensive formation. It owes its preservation to its position in a small valley between two longitudinal chains, and therefore has not been so much affected by the glaciation of New Zealand as it would have been had it been situated in the main line of the moving ice masses, which cross the longitudinal chains in a diagonal direction, or of the huge torrents rushing from them as they retreated towards the central chain.

We may also ascribe its preservation partly to the circumstance that one of the upper strata consists of a very hard ferruginous conglomerate which has generally well resisted the erosive action of running water.

This may readily be discerned at those spots where this stratum has been cut through, the beds below it having been easily destroyed.

Landslips and deep gullies cross the basin in every direction, showing clearly that had it not been for this hard stratum the whole basin would soon have disappeared.

It is about half a mile broad and two miles long, the latter direction being nearly north and south, and is of littoral origin, as shown not only by the lithological character of its beds, but also by the only fossil shell which occurs, a large species of ostrea, which is identical with that of the lignitiferous beds of the Malvern Hills.

The strike of the beds: where exposed in the centre, is from west-north-west to east-south-east, with a dip towards the south-south-west, at an angle of 17 to 21 degrees.

At the edge of the basin the strata are very much disturbed, pointing to the great revolutions of the earth’s crust which have taken place after their deposition.

That the principal of these great changes has been occasioned by the eruption of dolerites and other volcanic rocks is beyond doubt, the more so as such an occurrence is well shown in the magnificent sections in the River Horurata, near Rookwood, in the Malvern Hills, where the lignitiferous beds have not only been broken through by dolerites, but have at the same

• The same rocks occur also in Niedermendig in Germany, where they are extensively quarried for millstones, and form a very important article for exportation to all parts of the world.