ing fossils of a decidedly esturine character. Re-crossing the river, a party of six of us, provided with candles and a rope, explored the caves opening from the limestone gorge.

This gorge is about 180 feet deep, and the caves, of which there are five or six, open from the base of the northern slope, and descend with the dip of the strata.

They are mere fissures, but of very ancient date, having been in many cases filled from above by the same shingle that forms the overlying terraces. From one of them we obtained some fine semi-transparent stalactites, composed of crystallized carbonate of lime; but without a more searching examination I saw that there was no chance of discovering any remains of the Moa and its allies; but as these caves resemble in their structure many of the bone-yielding caverns of Europe, and in the fact of their having been filled by the washing in of superficial deposits of late tertiary age, there is every probability that a proper search would be rewarded by interesting discoveries.

Along the limestone ranges which bound the shingle plains, immense rifts in the soil, of unknown depth, are frequently seen by the shepherds, and in which sheep are often lost. These fissures are indeed so frequent as to render it dangerous to ride over the country after stock, though as yet no accidents have occurred.

Starting in the evening, we reached Mr. Aylmer’s station, on the Wairaki River, by moonlight. The air was very clear, and sharp frost set in—this sudden change in the weather indicating the upland character of the climate in consequence of the vicinity of the mountains, although its actual elevation can hardly exceed 500 feet above the sea level. Next morning we found it very cold work riding, as the frost was severe. The track crosses a succession of terraced hills, keeping at some distance back from the Waiau River, which here passes through a narrow ravine. The structure of the country is everywhere concealed by heavy deposits of well rounded shingle, principally the debris of syenitic rocks. The edges of the terraces are very steep, and the intervening valleys are occupied by swampy morasses that will give trouble in constructing a road in this direction. This broken country, which is valuable for pasturage, stretches right to the base of the Takitimo Mountains, which lie about five miles to the east of the track.

At noon we reached Mr. Ligar’s station, which lies in a valley at the base of a high precipitate scarp of conglomerate, called Cabbage-tree Hill, which rises over 1000 feet above the level of the creek. These conglomerate strata, which probably belong to the lower carbonaceous group of rocks, appear to be highly disturbed, but I did not inspect them closely.

In the stream I found beds of indurated clay shale, with iron-stone; nodules also similarly disturbed, and I was told that a short distance below the station the stream flows over blue slate, with quartz veins, containing iron pyrites, and in the neighborhood of which gold in small quantities has been obtained. From Ligar’s the track rises 700 feet up what is called the Big Hill, to the level of a high terrace, indicating that the level of the plains surrounding the Takitimo Mountains has been about 1700 feet lower than now, prior to the denudation of the great valley of the Waiau, during the gradual rise of the land at later tertiary times. This terrace at once recalled the appearance of the high plains which lies between the head of Shag Valley and the Upper Taieri Plains, and which is a similar altitude. In this case, however, the shingle of which the terrace is composed is principally syenitic gneiss, with fragments of hornblendic rock like that which occurs at the Bluff, whereas in the latter case the superficial deposits consist of felspatic clays and sub-angular shingle, derived from the chlorotic and micaceous schists, which there form the predominating formation. From this elevated terrace a full view is obtained of the Te Anau basin, which is bounded by the Greenstone Mountains to the N., by the Eyre Mountains and Takitimo on the E., and by the Okaka Ranges to the W., which latter forms the portion of the Southern Alps which is so cut up by the sounds of the West Coast.

The Te Anau and Manapora Lakes occupy only a small portion of this large basin, which is drained mainly by the Waiau River; but the Oreti, which passes Invercargill, also rises within its north-east corner, as it flows at first in close proximity to the Mariroa River, the principal tributary of the Waiau being separated from it only by a few miles of level strait.

The whole area of the basin is occupied by terraces, the steps of which descend successively towards the Lakes, but every torrent and stream have cut deep ravines into the incoherent materials composing them. In many sections, however, which are thus obtained, the terracing is observed to be merely a superficial form given to stratified deposits of more ancient date, covered by a thin coating of shingle. These deposits consist of blue and chocolate colored clays, with ferrugenous bands and modulated masses, which lie at various angles, and are probably of an early tertiary age. The floor of the basin is of a dark syenitic gneiss, which occasionally appears as the level of the lake as smooth rounded bosses.