CussEN. — On the Waikato Blver Basins. 413 



waters of the lake could take them. Underneath the trig, 

 station at Pukeotoka, near Miranda, a large mass of boulders, 

 rounded and water-worn, is found 200ft. above the neighbour- 

 ing valley, through which the head-waters of the Maramarua 

 Eiver flow : these boulders evidently mark an old river-bed of a 

 time when the country was 200ft. lower than it now is. 



The facts above quoted, whilst they prove first depression 

 and subsequent elevation of the land, do not, of course, show 

 that either movement was partial or local. This is alwaj-s 

 most difficult to prove, although it is well known and an 

 admitted fact that earth-movements are variable — here a 

 depression, there an elevation ; and the complicated forms of 

 our stratified rocks very clearly show it. 



The surface-configuration of the central Waikato basin, 

 especially on its western side, would appear to show e'^'idences 

 of local subsidence. The spurs on the eastern side of the 

 Hakarimata Range, looking southwards from Taupiri by Nga- 

 ruawahia, bear, I think, the appearance of a scarp along their 

 base. It would be interesting to ascertain whether the Tau- 

 piri Gorge itself marks a line of fault ; but a close examination 

 of the strata on either side would be necessary for this pur- 

 pose. 



There is little doubt that the waters of the middle basin 

 had their outlet by Hangawera-Hapuakohe Valley, and also 

 through the Waitakaruru Valley for a time ; subsequently they 

 flowed through Matahura into Waikare Lake and the lower 

 basin, and finally the Waikato drained them through the 

 Taupiri Gorge. Remnants of the old lakes still remain in the 

 lakelets, lagoons, and lake-like swamps which occupy the 

 depressed areas in the valley, and many of them are fast 

 drying up. 



An interesting feature in the lower Waikato basin is the 

 deep, wide valley which lies on the western side of the Hopua- 

 kohe Ranges. The Matahura and Wangamarino Rivers rise 

 izi it. Their head-waters are separated by a low saddle, one 

 flowing to the north and west, and the other to the south. 

 This valley did not, evidently, owe its origin to the streams 

 which now occupy it : it was a great river-valley in the past, 

 and possibly the course of the Waipa when the Waikato River 

 discharged itself into the Hauraki Gulf. 



There is no trace of pumice — the characteristic of the 

 Waikato's alluvium — to be found in this valley. Its outlet 

 was at Pukorokoro, into the Hauraki Gulf. The low saddle 

 which separates the waters of the Maramarua from those 

 of the Pukorokoro is not, I think, more than 60ft. above the 

 level of the sea. 



In the foregoing notes I have endeavoured to give some of 

 the evidences of the changes which have taken place in the 



