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feet thickness on the north side, which has lain exposed to the weather for two years, and still remains in the condition in which it was extracted, at once convinced me of the coal and the other New Zealand coals which I have seen. The coal is a dense, heavy, black coal, of a laminated structure, breaking in large pieces, which do not crumble. In the evening I burnt the coal in a fireplace, and was pleased with the large amount of flame and heat given out by it, without sulphureous or other disagreeable smell. It burnt away to a clean white ash.

Mr. Curtis has kindly forwarded to me an analysis of this coal, made in the year 1853, by Mr. Theoph. Heale, at Auckland. Mr. Heale proved the excellent qualities of the coal as gas coal; the quantity of carbon (not more than 53 per cent.) would not confer upon this coal a high character as fuel; but this low per centage probably arose from the piece submitted to analysis being mixed with shale. To me it appears that the coal must contain at least 70 per cent. of carbon, and that it will be found a very excellent coal for steam purposes.

On the southern side of the stream, the old workings exhibited the following section:—

Shale. . . . . . 0ft. 5in.
Coal . . . . . . 0 3½
Shale . . . . . . 0 4½
Coal . . . . . . 0 9
Sandstone . . . . 0 2
Coal . . . . . . 1 2
Shale.

Thus, the natural sections and the old workings show various seams, but none of them of great thickness, and in all of them more or less bands of shale.

The dip of the seam is toward south-west, that is, towards the West Wangannui harbour, at an angle of twenty degrees, and the coal-field reaches, undoubtedly, from Pakawau to West Wangannui. In a coal-field of such extent, it may with confidence affirmed, that seams of much greater thickness exist, and the way to ascertain their existence, is to make borings. This is the first thing for any company to do, which undertakes to work this very valuable coal-field. My reason for assigning to this coal-field a secondary age, is the existence of impressions of fossil plants, referable to calamites, ferns, and dicotyledones. Although the Pakawau coal-field does not belong to the carboniferous period, experience will show that the coal will rank in quality with the black coals of older date.

I proceed from these older coals to the tertiary period and the brown coal formation.

4.—TERTIARY FORMATIONS.

The tertiary formations which I observed in the districts of Golden and Blind Bays, belong to that group which I mentioned in my Auckland lecture as the older one. All the wide valleys and basins, which from the shores of Cook Strait run inland between the high primitive and primary ranges, are filled with tertiary strata, which at some places attain an altitude of 2,000 feet.

This formation is divided into two parts: the lower, or a brown coal formation, the upper, fossiliferous marl, sandstone, and limestone.

I will give a short description of these strata, from Cape Farewell to Awatere.

It is a remarkable fact, that at Cape Farewell, the north-westernmost point of the Middle Island, where the sea swarms with echinides, commonly called sea-eggs, the tertiary sandstone cliffs are also found full of fossil remains of the same family, but differing in species.

In the Aorere valley the original tertiary strata are, by later action, for the most part destroyed. On the western side of the valley indications of brown coal have been found. On the cliffs of Collingwood, marls, containing few fossils, are the representatives of the formation.

Higher up the valley large isolated masses of a fossiliferous calcareous sandstone, or, if you will, of a sandy limestone, penetrated by numerous caves, are the remains of a once continuous tertiary stratum.

The caves above Washbourn's flat, in these isolated limestone blocks, have lately become famed as bone caves, the cemeteries of gigantic birds, which, in the traditions of the Maories, are remembered as the frightful Moas, and which to science are known as the genera of Dinornis, Notornis, and Palapteryx.

When, in 1857, I saw in the British Museum, the skeletons of Dinornis elephantopus, and Dinornis robustus, I little thought that I should so soon be in possession of the same treasures.

Before my arrival at Collingwood I had heard of the late discovery of Moa bones in those caves, and I was anxious to procure those specimens which I had had so little success in obtaining in the Northern Island.

In the first cave which I entered—my friend Haast has since given it my name—after a short search, I dug out fragments of bones from the loam on the bottom of the cave. I was convinced that the treasures had not all been carried away, as from the caves in the Northern Island; and on the same day the finding of a Moa skull—so far as I know the most perfect yet found in New Zealand—was the reward of further researches.

Being obliged myself to leave for the Pakawau coal-field, my friend Haast remained behind in company with the young surveyor, Mr. Maling, to make more extensive re-