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Some of its fossils are turritella, venus, dentalium, pecten, struthiolaria. I have no doubt that it is of the same age and character as the upper sandstone of the Whanganui river.

This formation, where found undisturbed, seems to lie very horizontal; but numerous hill sides have slipped into the valleys, there giving the strata the appearance, to the casual observer, of dipping in various directions and at high angles.

From the vertical nature of the sections in which this series is found exposed, it has been impossible for me to make any but a partial investigation of its different beds, and the same difficulty, you may have perceived in the cliffs of the Whanganui and other Western rivers.

The blue clay throughout this district does not show much of its thickness above the river levels.

Crossing the Manuka range, 906 feet above the sea level, the road drops down to the Valley of the Taueru, and thence on to the Taueru station.

Here I visited a very beautiful waterfall, formed by the waters of the Mangarei, a tributary of the Taueru. The stream falls over a ledge of the upper sandstone to a depth of about fifty feet, into a large circular pool. Hard fossiliferous beds of the upper sandstone form the rocks at the fall, the softer overlying beds, which are found in an adjacent cliff, having been denuded.

I may here state that there is a remarkable parallelism between the effects produced in this district and in that of the country inland on the Whanganui and Rangitikei rivers, inclusive. In both districts are the upper sandstones largely developed, and in both have these nearly horizontal strata been broken up by denudation, into very rugged surfaces.

Many of the beds of the upper sandstone are extremely soft, and therefore liable to be rapidly worn away; some of them, indeed, on being struck by a hammer, instead of breaking into fragments, crumble and run down into pure sand; and water poured upon them passes through as in a sieve.

At the Taueru pieces of marine fossils were shown to me as quartz; and I found that generally throughout the district calc spar, white limestone, or, as I have said, even fragments of fossil shells, were supposed to be quartz.

Some very perfect “pecten,” from the top of the Manga Pakeha range, were presented to me by Mr. Varnham, for the museum in Wellington.

On the 19th January, I left the Taueru station and proceeded up the valley of that river, the Forty Mile Bush lying about three or four miles on my left and here covering a very broken country.

The road leads past Mr. Nicholl’s, crosses the Taueru, and ascends the ridge on the Eastern side of that river. My estimate of the height of the Taueru station above the sea is 427 feet. The ridge just mentioned rises to 1100 feet, and the Manawa hill next to it, above a run which rejoices in the euphonious name of Boggley Wallah, to 1179 feet. Here one looks down upon Messrs. Jeffs and Riach’s head station, and on the valley of the Whareama, with its level flats and swamps, while to the Northward may be seen the country drained by the Matai kuna, the Ohanga, perhaps also the Akiteo and here I could see plainly enough that all within view was of tertiary age, except the blue ridges of Tararua in the far distance.

At the Manawa hill, I was lucky in meeting Messrs. Spinks and Langdon, proceeding in the direction in which I wanted to go, viz, to Mr. Spinks’ out station, Mount Pleasant, or Waitawiti. Our road passed over the highest ridge which I traversed in the district, viz Ngatakitarua, which, by a mean of two observations, I make 1210 feet above the sea. From this ridge we descended to Mount Pleasant which is probably the highest inhabited European house in this island, being also by a mean of two observations, 985 feet above the sea level. Notwithstanding the height, it is a very cheerful looking place and it commands an extensive view.

Leaving Mount Pleasant on the 20th January in the direction of Knight’s station, we soon crossed the sources of the Taueru, passing therefore again to the Westward of that river, crossed a ridge and came upon the flats of the Waitawiti a tributary of the Tiraumea. As the latter river is a large branch of the Manawatu, we were now therefore, on Western waters.

We crossed another ridge and descended to the Tiraumea, at Knight’s station, where the Waitawiti joins that stream. Our descent had been considerable, and Knight’s house, by a mean of two observations, is only 414 feet above the level of the sea. Thus it appears that the gorge of the Manawatu must be considerably lower than that height.

The Tiraumea rises to the Eastward of the Puketoe range, runs to the Southward at first and turns to the Westward and Northward round the South end of that range, to join the Manawatu.

The country here is better and less abrupt than that lying further to the Eastward, but it is close to the forest of the forty mile bush.