o92 Traiisactions. 



Hector* and McKayf found the Taieri glacial beds so well stratified 

 that they placed them in the brown-coal series of Lower Tertiary age. The 

 better opportunity for examination now given along the new road foUo'w ing 

 the north bank of the Taieri, described above, shows that there is no 

 evidence to justify this correlation. 



South of Waihola and north of Allanton the glacial material dwindles 

 down to a thin sheet that towards its outer limits in the south is repre- 

 sented by only a few scattered blocks of basalt. Passing eastward towards 

 the sea, the eastern limit of the syncline rests against a highly denuded 

 surface of the mica-schist. To what distance the glacial drift formerly 

 reached in this direction it is impossible to say. All that now remains of 

 it is a thin sheet of gravel and clay that appears here and there on the hill- 

 tops fronting the sea. 



[Note. — Hutton, Hector, and McKay have recorded the Taieri Moraine 

 on the hills overlooking the Tokomairiro Plain. Last July, Mr. A. Gordon 

 Macdonald, B.E., and I traced it to the north bank of the Tokomairiro 

 River ; and since then Mr. Macdonald has pointed out that the front of 

 Mount Misery up to a height of 1,000 ft. above the sea is covered with a 

 thick deposit of glacial znorainic drift. I have lately verified this further 

 extension of the Taieri Moraine.] 



Briefly stated, we have in the Taieri Moraine a glacial deposit varying 

 from to 1,500 ft. or more in thickness. The upper layers, 450 ft. or 

 460 ft. thick, are composed of coarse, angular, and gravelly drift rudely 

 stratified; the lower and major portion, over 1,000ft. thick, consists of 

 well-stratified silts, sands, and gravelly drift. The deposit can be traced 

 over a distance of nearly twenty-two miles in length, and over a width 

 varying from one to three miles. 



The Taieri glacial deposit is, according to Dr. Marshall, the terminal 

 moraine of a glacier that flowed across Central Otago, entering the Taieri 

 Basin from the west. The beautifully glaciated slopes of the mica-schist 

 uplands lying immediately west of the Taieri Plain, and the domed summit 

 of Maungatua, bear eloquent witness of the path of this ancient ice-sheet ; 

 but I cannot agree that the moraine is terminal. At any rate, it bears no 

 resemblance to such typical ancient terminal moraines as those at Clyde, 

 Lower Kawarau Gorge near Cromwell, Kingston, Von, Waitaki, Lakes 

 Guy on, Tennyson, Rotoroa, Rotoiti, and Brunner. Nor can I find in the 

 literature of glaciation a reference to any terminal moraine consisting of 

 such an assemblage of stratified deposits. 



The terminal moraines of ice-sheets consist of tumbled masses of rock 

 dumped over the face of the ice, and seldom show the sorting of fluviatile 

 action. The terminal moraines of valley-glaciers, on the other hand, often 

 show rude sorting of the coarser matter, efiected by the river issuing from 

 the bottom of the glacier, the muds and finer material being generally 

 carried away in the flowing stream. But from first to last the tumbled, 

 angular, unsorted material predominates. 



In the Taieri Moraine the finer material forms 80 or 90 per cent, of 

 the whole deposit. It is well stratified, and the stratification can be 

 traced over a length of twenty miles. Subglacial and fluvio-glacial agencies 

 alone seem competent to account for the formation of this pile of bedded 

 glacial drift. 



* J. Hector, Rep. Geol. Exp., 1890-91, p. Ix. 

 t A. McKay, I.e., p. 45. 



