BY CAPTAIN P. W. HUTTON, F.G.S., &C. 339 



tliey may hold as to the cause, are of opinion that the glacier epoch 

 was long anterior to the glacial epoch of Europe and N. America. (1) 

 Dr. von. Lendenfeld, however, has come to the remarkable 

 conclusion that the glacier epoch in New Zealand " has not been 

 more remote than two or three thousand years. (2) He bases this 

 conclusion on observations he has made on the deltas at the mouths 

 of the streams that run into the Sounds on the West Coast of 

 Otago. " Scarcely," he says, " do we find a small delta sent up 

 between the rocks at the mouths of the terminal rivers. This, 

 together with the fact that the rivers bring down a great amount of 

 rock and sand, shows that the Sounds cannot have existed long, 

 for otherwise they would necessarily have been filled up more or 

 less by the material which is continually being deposited at the 

 bottom of their still waters." Unfortunately, Dr. von Lendenfeld 

 does not give us any information as to which of the Sounds he has 

 examined, so that it is impossible to test his statement in any 

 particular case. I have myself only examined the heads of the 

 following Sounds — Milford, Bligh, Bradshaw, and Preservation — 

 so that my observations are not very extended, but so far as they 

 go, they are at variance with those of Dr. von Lendenfeld. All 

 these Sounds are shallow near their heads and afford good anchorage. 

 Also, with the exception of Preservation, which is rocky, all have 

 alluvial flats running for some distance up the valley at the end. 

 In Milford the Cleddan Valley is not large, but.that of the Arthur 

 has considerable mud-flats and fluviatile deposits. The same is the 

 case in the vallies at the heads of Bradshaw and Bligh Sounds, up 

 which I went for some distance in 1874 prospecting for gold. 

 Indeed I think that the fluviatile deposits are very considerable 

 when we consider that none of the so-called " rivers " are more 

 than ten or fifteen miles in length and often much less. These 

 little streams are not to be compared to the Ehone where it runs 

 into Lake Geneva, nor even to a^ small stream running from 

 mountains exposed to gi-eat vicissitudes of climate ; for the 



(1) See N. Z. Journal of Science, Vol. II., p. 266, and Ann. Mag. of Nat. 

 Hist.,ser. 5, Vol. 15, p. 97.) 



(2) Pro. Lin. Soc. of N. S. Wales, Vol. IX., p. 808. 



