GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW ZEALAND.
Bv James Hector, C.M.G., F.R.S., Director. Reports for 1877-8, with maps and sections.
Wo gladly welcome tho appearance of this useful volume. Like all its predecessors, it contains much matter of interest alike to tho 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 tho year’s work, in which Dr. Hector tolls us that during a holiday, taken on account of ill-health, ho visited Australia and Tasmania, and compared tho fossils of their coal measures with those of New Zealand. Tho members of tho geological staff visited and most carefully inspected 26 out of tho 32 collieries now worked in the colony. The total amount of coal nsed in the colony during tho year was 294,980 tone, of which 155,996 tons were imported and 138,984 tons were derived from our own mines. By far the most productive mine was the-Kawakawa, the out-put from which was 36,599 tons ; the next largest being the Brunner with 21,974 tons; the smallest amount was 50 tons, from the St. Andrew’s colliery, in the Oamaru 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 tho chief feature of the gold mining is a revival of the interest in the reefs in tho Marlborough District and in the Longwood Range, District of Southland, and wfc may remark that this confirms his specnlat ons ’published in the reports for 1860. Mr. Cox furnishes an elaborate report on tho different collieries, and speaks vary favorably of tho mineral wealth of d’Urville Island.
Passing now to tho purely geological part of these reports, wo 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. are derived from three horizons, in the lowest of which are plant beds containing Glossopteris augustifoliaand Schizonenra; the .former being a charactoiistic fossil of the Newcastle coalfieldsin New South Wales, and both genera being found associated in tho triassic formation of India.” Dr. Hector docs not agree with Dr.: Haaat in the latter’s provisional list of lower ntssozoie fossils. . Mr. McKay found some , more huge reptilian remains, Tho ribs of odo of these monsters
■were' 3j feet in length, while the diameter of a single biconcave ' vertebra was no less than 18 inches. Its belly was covered with long thin horny plates. This huge reptile probably belonged to the genua Eosauru*, had short 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 stone, 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 bo 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 d fft-treut foasiliferous strata will certainly reveal many now 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 marina fossils are absent from the upper coal-bearing bods and the overlying strata, so that tho 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 ga* 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 the most important fossils ; and it concludes with an index to locality numbers. The 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 Now Zealand is of very recent formation, for wo are told that the Kavori sandstone*, hear Wellington, belong to tho carboniferous period, while in other places, such as Keefton, 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" rime still older rocks will bo discovered, which will prove New Zealand to bo quite as old as Europe or America. __ ___
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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5497, 8 November 1878, Page 7
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841GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW ZEALAND. New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5497, 8 November 1878, Page 7
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