Waihao Formation.

I have given this name to a series of beds of considerable thickness reposing upon the crystalline metamorphic schists or the gneiss granite formation, from which they are distinguished by having undergone only partial metamorphism; the line drawn, however, is arbitrary, principally along the direction of the Southern Alps, where these formations gradually blend with each other. The character of the rocks in the eastern division, as I shall show in the sequel, is however far more distinct and constant, and, in many respects, different from that of the rocks of the central chain; but the latter, in their turn, often assimilate in their upper portion to those of the next, or Mount Torlesse formation, so that it is very often impossible to find the boundary line between them. Captain Hutton has named the same beds, occurring in Otago, the Kakanui formation, but as I find that our boundaries, where the rocks cross the Waitaki, do not entirely agree, so that he might include beds which I consider to belong to the next, or Mount Torlesse formation, I have thought it more convenient to give to that formation, occurring in the Province of Canterbury, a local name, selecting it from the River Waihao, where the rocks are largely developed and show well their peculiar structure.