Note

By Professor F. W. Hutton.

This specimen was collected by me in Isthmus Sound, Preservation Inlet, during March, 1874, when I was examining the west coast Sounds as geologist to the Provincial Government of Otago. My observations seemed to show that the granite was intrusive and much younger than the gneiss with which it is associated in Preservation and Chalky Inlets, and in my report to the Provincial Government of Otago*^* I considered that it had pierced rocks belonging to the Maitai (=Kaikoura) System, and consequently that it was much younger than the gneiss which was considered as of Archæan age. Fragments of the slate are found in the granite, and consequently the slate is the younger of the two. The analysis by Professor Liversidge shows that the granite cannot be metamorphosed slate, so consequently it must be intrusive. The age of the slate is however doubtful, as Dr. Hector in his last geological map of New Zealand has coloured it as belonging to his “foliated schists” of uncertain age. The actual rock in question, however, is not a foliated schist, but an argillite, that is an uncleaved slate, and the alteration produced by the granite does not penetrate very far into it.