Haedcastle. — The Timaru Loess as a Climate Bcgister. 329 



Hill), immediately west of the Timani plateau. This snow- 

 field gave rise to a small glacier which, gathering towards the 

 uortli, swept by east and south to the Pai-eora, along the 

 western side of Mount Horrible (the summit of the Timaiii 

 plateau, l,lCOft.), and gouged away the mountain on that 

 side, with its thick cap of dolorite upon soft marine-beds, into 

 a precipitous face 800ft. or POOft. high. This stream, joining 

 another flowing from the upper Pai-eora country by the south 

 of Mount Misery — rather a broad sheet of land-ice, perhaps, 

 than a mere glacier-stream — gouged away the southern side of 

 Mount Honible and lower portions of the plateau in a similai- 

 manner. Moreover, the summit of Mount Horrible, though 

 of no gi-eat area, yielded a glacier which, flowing down a 

 shght slope northwards, scooped out on that side a wide yet 

 ravine-like gully, this stream then joining that from Motmt 

 Misery. Mount Horrible is thus blocked out by precipitous 

 faces on three sides, in a manner giving a western aspect 

 justifying its name. No other agent competent to do the 

 woik could have operated here ; no other agent operates in 

 such a way ; and, besides the general character of the denuda- 

 tion, there are a few other marks of glacier- work on the 

 mountain, in perched blocks, and a small lateral moraine 

 piled against the remnant of an enormous sUp from the pre- 

 cipitcus southern face. Having studied the enormous gouging 

 of Mount Horrible, evidently the work of ice, I have no 

 hesitation in attributing the two peculiar- chai-acters in the 

 upper loess to the glaciation of this deposit. These marks, 

 then, show that the severest phase of the second ice age 

 occun-ed near its close. Another layer of loess was afterwai'ds 

 added, but it is of less thickness than earher ones, and should. 

 I think, be referred to the earlier stages of the retreat of the 

 ice, a<s in later stages the glacier silt would scarcely escape 

 being trapped by rock-basin lakes, which later on were filled 

 with shingle. 



Among the accidental constituents of the Timaru loess, 

 the multitudes of bird-stones in most of the bands marking 

 long-pei'sistent land-surfaces are surely the most remarkable- 

 Then- distribution also is remarkable. According to my ob- 

 servations they ai-e decidedly much more numerous at the 

 coast than a couple of miles inland, and also more numerous 

 at the north end of the coast clifls than a few miles further 

 south. So far the only good section of the whole deposit that 

 has been made inland is the " stripping " at the Harbour 

 Quarry, and here the bird-stones are few, certainly much less 

 numerous than at the coast. The number and the partial 

 distribution of the pebbles may be accounted for by the sup- 

 position (besides that of an arctic climate, otherwise found 

 necessary) that tlie Timaru plateau never ext-ended much 



