Most of the masses were white, hard, and crystalline, having sharp and angular edges, with a blackened surface, and horizontal stratification. One group was of a reddish yellow colour, and of coarser grain than the rest. As I was about ascending the highest group, my steps were arrested by a chief much tattooed, who suddenly emerged from the wood, and gave me to understand that the place was "tapu," or forbidden ground, being the "warau," or burial-place of his tribe, who inhabited the village of Waiomio, on the banks of the river which meanders through the valley beneath, in a S.E. and N.W. course.
As the boat passed the missionary station on the Kawa-Kawa, I observed something suspended in the air like a hawk hovering over its quarry; but which turned out to be a kite, the flying of which is here an amusement of the Maori children. It is most ingeniously made from the leaves of a species of Cyperaceæ, or sedge, with wings resembling a bird, from which it receives the names "manu," a bird, or "paku," wing of a bird; the Phormium tenax furnishes its flaxen string.
From the foregoing remarks on the northern part of the island, it will be perceived that New Zealand has a volcanic substratum of basalt and greenstone, with a superincumbent deposition of clay, through which beds of limestone and sandstone crop out in various places. The limestone cliffs at Waingaroa Bay contain fossil shells of the following genera: Ostrea, Pecten, Terebratula, and Turritella, with Asterias and Echinus: the neighbouring sandstone being much interrupted by greenstone dykes. Layers of lignite are found in beds of loam. This carbonised wood, which is said to have belonged to Kaudi and Pohutukava trees, is abundantly distributed, both on the east and west coasts, especially in the valley of the Thames, associated with horizontal sandstone formations near Auckland. Copper ore, in micaceous slate, has also been found in this locality. Fossil shells occur in the vicinity of Poverty Bay. The Green Jade, or a variety of serpentine, of which
