Park. — Marine Tertiaries of Otago and Canterbury . 499 



The Wharekuri basin had access to the open sea by a 

 narrow channel on the south side of Kurow Hill ; the Trelissic 

 basin had its outlet by the Broken River into the estuary of 

 the Waimakariri. In Marlborough there were the famous 

 Clarence and Awatere fiords, long, almost straight, parallel 

 gutters stretching far back between the overhanging Kai- 

 kouras. The old outlet of Clarence fiord was in a line with 

 the present course of the valley. But in Pleistocene times, 

 during the great extension of the glaciers, a subsequent stream 

 which entered the sea ten miles souta of Shades Creek cut its 

 channel back through the northern end of the Seaward Kai- 

 kouras until it tapped the drainage-area of the Clarence River. 

 Having a shorter course, and consequently a greater velocity 

 and erosive power, the subsequent stream in time diverted 

 the Clarence to its own course. The nakedness of the land- 

 scape, the sharpness of the outline of mountain and ridge, 

 are such as to stamp the impress of newness upon the 

 features of the country. To the geologist this newness is 

 apparent and not real. It is a mental deception conveyed 

 to the eye mainly through the exaggerated height of the sur- 

 rounding mountains compared with the width of ridge and 

 valley. But we know that the old floor of these fiords for a 

 distance of over forty miles is occupied by Miocene Tertiaries, 

 and therefore we are unable to escape from the conclusion that 

 the valleys they occupy were carved prior to the Miocene. 



Proceeding to Nelson we find that the same conditions 

 prevailed. The Tertiaries ramify the old fiord-valleys of the 

 Motueka and its tributaries the Tadmor, Wangapeka, and 

 Baton ; of the Takaka and Aorere. 



On the west coast of Nelson the marine beds follow and 

 contour around the Inangahua and Buller Valleys and their 

 branches. The ramifications of the old Buller fiord were of 

 greater extent than those of any fiord existing at the present 

 time. A long arm extended up to the foot of Mount Owen, 

 throwing off a lateral branch which reached eastward nearly 

 to the Mount Hope. Another stretched south-east to the 

 base of the main divide, opening out into a great inland basin, 

 now known as the Maruia Plains. 



The Tertiary bench formed an encircling fringe around 

 the whole of the South Island. After its emergence from the 

 sea it became carved and eroded before the Pliocene sub- 

 mergence, during which the Greta and Wanganui beds were 

 deposited. 



The next great uplifting of the land took place near the 

 close of the Pliocene, and the upward movement continued 

 until the elevation was such as to permit the accumulation 

 of great masses of glacier-ice among the higher mountain- 

 chains. This was in the Pleistocene — that is, the glacier 



