continued six miles on No. 2. road-line, in the direction of Wangaehu, and six miles on No. 3 road-line, up the river; also, as far north as Patea for forty miles along the sea coast, at various points between the Kai Iwi and Waitotara rivers, and between the Whenuakura and Patea rivers.

Over the area thus surveyed, the beds are uniformly the same, so that it is unnecessary to protract a section of each particular locality.

In some places they are slightly disturbed—as for instance opposite the town of Wanganui—but, on the whole, they strike in North and South line, with a dip of 10° to 15° to the East; the blue clay stratum which I shall describe, keeping, in general, parallel with the drainage level of the country.

The formation consists of an upper sandy, and lower clay stratum, and separated by a deposit of sand of varying thickness, being at least twelve feet in Shakespere cliff, at Wanganui, the whole covered by a heavy deposit of sands and gravels, containing a cemented gravel bed also of variable thickness, the material from which is in common use for the construction of roads throughout the district.

Along the sea coast the blue clay rises to a height of from one to forty feet above the sea level. A few shells appear to be confined to this deposit, such as Murex^* No. 2, Pecten No. 2, and Mytilus No. 2. A few others decrease upwards in the series such as Ancillaria, Murex No. 1, Fusus No. 2, Pecten No. 1, and Ostrea No. 2. Again, a few shells, poorly represented in the blue clay, become very numerous in the upper bed, such as Lucina No. 2, Rotella, Waldheimia, and Imperator imperialis.

The upper bed of the series has generally an open sandy matrix, varying in thickness from four feet at Shakespere cliff, to over a hundred feet at the lower cliffs below Putiki pa; the blue clay, or lower bed, scarcely showing there above the river level.

In this upper bed the following species occur for the first time, in addition to those mentioned as common to both formations:

[The section below cannot be correctly rendered as it contains complex formatting. See the image of the page for a more accurate rendering.]

(Extinct forms are in italics.)

There is every probability that, in addition to the above two beds, an older stratum exists, more inland, characterized by the presence of Cucullæa, and if the blue clay of the Patea river should prove to belong to this lower bed, the proportion of extinct species in the Wanganui beds would be considerably diminished.