Apart from the question of the volcano, I have read Mr. Purnell's paper with much interest, and I hope he will continue his researches, and give us further accounts of them.

Art. LIV.—On the Probability of Finding Extensive Coal Deposits within the Province of Wellington. By J. C. Crawford, F.G.S. [Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, October 4, 1875.] Where coal is found in New Zealand I believe it invariably underlies the cucullœa beds, not that the sequence is necessary, because of course these beds may rest upon other rocks; but they may, at all events, be considered as an indication, and as showing the possibility of coal being present. If we strike a line from the Mokau coal seams through the outcrop of the same mineral at Ohura and Tangarakau, the rivers of these names falling into the right bank of the Whanganui, we shall find a line of fracture and of fault, the coal seams dipping from that line, I think, to the south-west, that is to say, as far as an imperfect observation of some of them only enabled me to judge. No coal as yet has been found on the eastern side of this line. Now, it is reasonable to suppose that this line of fracture does not mark the eastern limit of the coal seams; but that these may be found to an unlimited distance further east, even up to the flanks of the Ruahine. The cucullœa beds are found to the eastward of this line in the Whanganui River, and I think the same formation forms the prevailing rock of the Rangitikei, although it is long since I ascended that river, my fossils went astray on account of non-delivery by the Maoris, and, therefore, although the formation is similar in appearance to that on the banks of the Whanganui, I am not prepared to prove that it is of the same age. We will extend the line above mentioned into the valley of the Waikato, and call it the western line of strike. The coal seams along this line of strike may be held, I think, to dip to the westward, and probably underlie all the country to the westward, although broken through and destroyed by the igneous rocks of Mount Egmont and other volcanic cones. With regard to the Province of Wellington the problem to be solved is this Does the western line of strike mark the limit of the coal seams towards the east, or do they underlie the cucullœa beds and the tertiaries to a greater or lesser distance further in that direction? The probabilities are rather greater than less that the coal seams underlie the whole of the country from the western line of strike as far as the