430 Transactions. — Geology. 



shores of the lake shows that the waters once stood about 100 ft. 

 higher than their present level. 



It is well known that the recreation- ground at Queenstown, 

 lying to the south of the town, and projecting as a narrow tongue 

 of land into the lake in a westerly direction, is a moraine : it is 

 important to note that no traces of this moraine are to be seen 

 on the flanks of the Queenstown Hill except near the lake-level. 



Two hypotheses may be framed tentatively to account for 

 the presence of the striated stones at the high elevation at which 

 they occur on the hill-track. The glacier flowing down the lake 

 would have from White Point to Queenstown an easterly direc- 

 tion, and at the latter place its northern fringe would have its 

 path directly barred by the Queenstown Hill. If there had 

 existed a moderate slope to the hill on its western face it is pos- 

 sible that the edge of the glacier was impelled up the slope and 

 reached the elevation of 600 ft. above the lake-level at which 

 the striated stones now exist, while the blocking of the edge of 

 the glacier here might be held to explain the presence of the 

 moraine at the recreation-ground. 



There are instances on record of a glacier having moved up- 

 hill under the action of an enormous vis a tergo, but this force 

 is operative to the greatest extent on the deeper-seated parts 

 of a glacier, and to a much less extent on the surface portions 

 and edges of the glacier. It is to be noticed that the morainic 

 material exists now only at and just above the lake-level, and 

 also that there is a large area lying just north of the recreation- 

 ground — what may be called Queenstown Harbour — which ap- 

 pears to be free from the morainic debris, when we should have 

 expected it to have accumulated here if there had been any 

 serious blocking of the glacier at the foot of Queenstown Hill — 

 and there are great difficulties in supposing the morainic material 

 to have been there once to the same extent as on the recreation- 

 ground, and to have been subsequently removed by a creek or 

 rivei- which has now ceased to flow from any cause, or has had its 

 course diverted. The terrace formation at Queenstown and the 

 bed of river gravel previously referred to point to the former 

 existence of a river discharging into Lake Wakatipu at Queens- 

 town after its formation as a lake. 



r The deep gorge running north and separating Queenstown 

 Hill from the south-east spurs of Ben Lomond must have been 

 originally eroded by water or by ice. There is no antecedent 

 improbability in picturing the watershed of the river which 

 flowed through this gorge as having been the collecting-ground 

 for snow which furnished a small tributary glacier which joined 

 the lake at Queenstown. and, depositing its accumulated burden 

 of material on the site of the recreation-ground, has built up the 



