REVIEW.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5496, 7 November 1878, Page 3

REVIEW.

Geological Survey op New Zealand, By Jajies Hector, C.M.G., F.R.S., Director. Reports for 1577-S, with maps and sections. We gladly welcome the appearance of this, useful volume. Like air its predecessors, it contains much matter of interest alike to the geologist and to the commercial man. It contains careful and fall reports on the different; collieries and on the mineral resources of the colony, and it also contains many essays of high geological value. The volume opens with an epitome of the year’s work, in which Dr. Hector tells us that during a holiday, taken on account of ill-health, he visited Australia and Tasmania, and compared tho fossils of their coal measures with those of New Zealand. The members of the geological staff visited and most carefully inspected 26 out of the 32 collieries now worked in the colony. The total amount of coal used in the colony during the year was 294,980 tons, of which 155,996 tons were imported and 138,984 tons were derived from our own mines. By far the moat productive mine was the Kawakawa, the out-put from whichwas 36,599 tons ; the next largest being tho Brunner with 21,974 tons; the smallest amount was 50 tons, from the St, Andrew’s colliery, in the Oamarn District. Dr. Hector .tells us that the prejudice against the use of brown coal for household purposes and steam generating is rapidly disappearing as people become better acquainted with its management. The Director notes that the chief feature of the gold mining is a revival of the interest in the reefs in the Marlborough District and in the Longwood Rauge, District of Southland, and we may remark that this confirms his speculations published in the reports for 1869. Mr, Cox furnishes an elaborate report on the different collieries, and speaks very favorably of the mineral wealth of d’TJrville Island. Passing now to the purely geological part of these reports, we find that a great deal of really excellent work.has been done, and many very important discoveries made. Mr. McKay carefully examined the fossils of Mount Potts, in Canterbury. Fossils are derived from three horizons, in the lowest of which are plant beds containing Glossopteris augustifoliaand Schizoneura; the former being a characteristic fossil of the Newcastle coalfields in New South Wales, and both genera being found associated in the triassic formation of India,” Dr. Hector does not agree with Dr. Haast in the latter’s provisional list of lower mesozoic fossils. Mr. McKay found some more huge reptilian remains. The ribs of one of these monsters were 3 J feet in length, while the diameter of a single biconcave vertebra was no le. c 3 than 18 inches. Its belly was covered with long thin homy plates. This huge ‘ reptile probably belonged to the genus Eosaurus, had extremely abort weak legs, and very complicated teeth. If at some future date Dr. Hector or one of his successors were to restore, or set up in stono, models of New Zealand's extinct reptiles, like those of the mastodon and mammoth and other huge animals in the Crystal Palace grounds, every one would be astonished at their enormous size, their great complexity, and their generally terrifying appearance. It is not improbable that New Zealand produced larger reptiles than any other part of the globe, but though reptilian life was so abundant and so luxuriant, there was not a single mammal, not even a single marsupial. Further examination of the different fossiliferous strata will certainly reveal many new and wondrous forms. ’ Mr. Cox examined the strata of the lower mesozoic age in Southland. These rocks, Dr, Hector tells us, are of much interest on account of their relation to the coal formation of New South Wales and India, as in both these countries marine fossils are absent from the upper coal-bearing beds and the overlying strata, so that the exact period in which the principal coal seams have been deposited has been a subject of controversy among geologists, whereas in New Zealand their, equivalent strata are highly fossiliferous. Mr. McKay explored part of the Wairarapa and found a spring with great quantities of gas bubbling through it, which gas burns readily if a match be applied to it. He could not find any oil-springs. In the appendix are most useful lists showing the position of various formations throughout the country ; also, lists showing the whereabouts of tho, moat important fossils ; and it concludes with an index to locality numbers. Tho volume shows how much real honest work is being done by the members of a much maligned department. It also shows us how erroneous is the prevailing idea that .New Zealand is of very recent formation, for we are told that the Karori sandstones, near Wellington, belong to the carboniferous, period, while in other places, such as Reeffcon, there appear Devonian rocks, and at Mount Arthur and the Great Barrier Islands the rocks are Silurian. It is highly probable that at some future time still older rocks will be discovered, which will prove New Zealand to be quite as old as Europe or America. '