340 ON THE SUPPOSED GLACIAL EPOCH IN AUSTRALIA, 



climate in the Sounds, although moist, is remarkably equable all 

 through the year; and, with theexception of Milford, the sidesof the 

 Sounds and the ranges between them, are covered with dense vege- 

 tation, On the eastern side of the mountains, where the rivers are 

 longei-, the process of filling up has gone on much more rapidly, and 

 has reached a pointfarinadvanceoftheri vers in Switzerland, although 

 the latter are much larger. The rate of filling in of a lake or Sound 

 does not depend so much on the height of the mountains surrounding 

 it, as on the size of the catchment basin which it drains. The islands 

 in the sounds are not 7noutonnees, and although some of the 

 smaller ones are rounded, they show no sign of lee and strike 

 sides. The preci{)ices on either side of the sounds are also, in 

 general, quite rough, and I only noticed two localities (both 

 previously observed by Dr. Hector) where there was any 

 appearance of polishing. One was in Milford Sound on the south 

 side of the entrance to the " Narrows," the other near Deas Cove 

 in Thompson Sound (1) I saw neither grooves nor striae; but 

 Dr. Hector noticed them in Thompson Sound and in the Cleddan 

 Valley. (2) All this is very difierent from any glaciated district 

 in Scotland, Wales, or Ireland, where nearly every rock tells the 

 same tale ; and, judging from published accounts, it is very 

 diflferent from the Fiords of Norway, the rocks of which are much 

 the same as those of the West Coast Sounds of New Zealand. 

 Yet that these sounds have at one time been occupied by ice is 

 proved by the huge granite boulders lying on the sandstones and 

 niudstones at Kisbee Bay in Preservation Inlet. But I need not 

 reproduce the evidence in favour of the very ancient date of the 

 great glacier epoch of New Zealand, (3) I will only say that it 

 seems to me to be of much greater weight than the attempt of 

 Dr. von Lendenfeld to show that detritus cannot have been poured 

 into the West Coast Sounds for a longer period than two or three 

 thousand years ; for he does not know the original depth of the 

 sounds nor the amount of debris that is annually brought down. 



(1) Geology of Otago, Dunedin, 1875, p. 67. 



(2) Geological Exploration of the West Coast, pp. 458 and 461. 



(.3) See N. Z. Journal of Science, Vol. II., p. 262, and Ann. and Mag. 

 of Nat. Hist., Series 5, Vol. XV., p. 93. 



