518 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



ing down the hillsides, and cutting out the very prominent 

 gullies which are so characteristic of the view which we 

 see every day as we look across the harbour, or observe the 

 hills enclosing Wellington. That, the framework of this 

 rugged country was due to other and preceding causes there 

 can be no doubt ; but that the surface-cutting must have been 

 the result of the erosive action of water in a much more 

 violent form than is experienced in our existing climate seems 

 equally certain, and I think that, although the climate in this 

 latitude was not so severe as to allow of the formation of 

 glaciers at the time when they were so marked a feature in 

 the southern parts of the Middle Island, yet the winters must 

 have been so severe as to insure a heavy snowfall throughout 

 the long ages of the Glacial period, which has left its mark in 

 this way by the water erosion of melting snow and heavy 

 rains, although not by the grinding action of the consolidated 

 snow in glaciers. 



In Tasmania, evidences of extensive glaciers in former 

 times are now found in about lat. 42° S., or nearly the same 

 latitude as the northern limit in New Zealand. A very 

 interesting paper on the subject, read before the Royal 

 Society of Victoria by Mr. E. J. Dunn last year, has been 

 kindly put into my hands by Sir James Hector. Mr. Dunn 

 describes the district he visited near Zeehan,' in the western 

 highlands of Tasmania, which do not exceed in altitude 

 from 1,800ft. to 3,800ft., and where the records of glaciers 

 are left in moraines, erratic blocks, and the characteristic 

 planing, scoring, and polishing of rocks. He observes that 

 in the higher mountains farther south and east he is confi- 

 fident that still more extensive records of the last ice age 

 will be found. He says that the appearances indicate a com- 

 paratively recent date for the glaciers which must have 

 formerly existed in the neighbourhood which he visited. 



In a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society in 

 March, 1893, by Mr. H. O. Forbes, which has also been 

 shown to me by Sir James Hector, Mr. Forbes refers to 

 evidences of glaciation in South Africa as far north as lat. 

 27° and 30° S. I should imagine that these evidences are 

 either on very high mountains, or that they belong to an 

 earlier geological date than those in other parts of the 

 Southern Hemisphere, which are not found farther north than 

 lat. 3G° S. He also refers to evidences of glacier-action in 

 South Australia in lat. 36° S. I presume that he alludes to 

 the ice records in St. Vincent's Gulf, near Adelaide. 



Mr. R. M. Johnston, F.L.S., in a very exhaustive paper 

 read in June last before the Royal Society of Tasmania and 

 also furnished to me by Sir James Hector, explains these 

 markings and erratic blocks by the stranding of icebergs on the 



