580 Transactions. 



Note. — Early in March, 1910, Mr. A. Hamilton reported the occurrence 

 of a great andesitic-boulder deposit between the Waimarino Plain and 

 Raurimu, on the Main Trunk Railway. Later in the same month I examined 

 this area, and found that the western limits of the Waimarino Plain were 

 ■occupied or fringed by a crescent-shaped chain of morainic hills and ridges 

 rising from 50 ft. to 200 ft. above the level of the plain. This morainic 

 mound stretches from the Maunganui-a-te-ao, on the west side of Ruapehu, 

 to the Upper Wanganui, a distance of over twenty miles. Its breadth 

 varies from two to four miles. On the railway-route it ends near Raurimu, 

 where it is covered with a heavy drift of pumice. The Main Trunk Railway, 

 where it crosses the Waimarino Plain, runs along the foot of the moraine 

 for some miles. Further north the railway traverses an andesitic drift 

 between Oio and Owhango. 



North of Waimarino Station the railway passes through the morainic 

 chain for several miles, descending to Raurimu by a series of sharp loops 

 wliich are known as the " Spiral." In this portion of the line the structure 

 of the moraine is beautifully exposed in miles of deep cuttings. The material 

 is seen to consist of a tumbled mass of large and small angular andesite 

 blocks mingled with reddish-brown clay and rock-rubble. 



Water-worn material is absent or rare in the morainic hills traversed 

 by the railway between Waimarino and Raurimu ; and it is only when the 

 line passes into the course of the old glacial valley of the Upper Wanganui, 

 south of Oio, that the andesitic-boulder formation as exposed in the road 

 and railway cuttings is found to contain a proportion of water-worn gravel 

 and boulders. 



The Waimarino moraine is a typical example of a terminal moraine. It 

 was obviously formed by the confluent glaciers descending from the west 

 side of Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe, and Tongariro. 



Art. LIX. — Further Notes on the Glaciation of the North Island of New 



Zealand. 



By Professor James Park, F.G.S. 



[Read before ike Otago Institnie, Ith December, ITOO.] 



In the month of November last, accompanied by Mr. A. Hamilton, 

 Director of the Dominion Museum, I made a further examination of the 

 great andesitic glacial drift in the lower Hautapu Valley, already described 

 by me in a paper read before this Society in August of the present year. 

 The primary object of our visit was to obtain photographs of the glacial 

 deposit, and in this we were fairly successful, although the weather-con- 

 ditions were not as favourable as could be wished for. 



A small patch of the andesitic deposit is seen in the railway-cutting a 

 short distance west of Waiouru, and a pile of andesite blocks lies on the 

 coach-road to Taupo, about three miles from Waiouru ; but it is only when 

 we reach the edge of the forest-belt, near Tuvanga-a-rere, that the glacial 



I 



