I.

The whole country extending from the Kakanui to the Waitaki River, a distance of more than 20 miles, and covering a vast area, of not less than 100 square miles is composed entirely of this stone formation, which crops up above the surface in almost every field, and rises—as at the Fortification and elsewhere—into vast ridges of incalculable quantity. The stone varies in quality, not only in each locality, but even in each of the quarries now being page 4 worked, but on all hands it is acknowledged that this vast area abounds in deposits of the best description of stone, and the number of quarries which may be developed may be multiplied ad infinitum. This district, besides the main trunk line of railway, is traversed by three branch lines.