V \\\\<.- -M(i ilhoroiir/li Ciui^hil ^lortu ne>^ (ind Wduiii ('•hicutl Valh ii. 523 



for over twenty miles. They consist of n great pile of fiuviatile drifts over 

 1,200 ft. thick. Towards their base the drifts are intercalated with beds of 

 clay and soft sandstone alternating with beds of gravel. At their base, 

 and resting on the basement rock, which is mainly greywacke and jointed 

 argillite of probably Lower Secondary age, there is a rock-rubble deposit 

 mainly composed of angular blocks of greywacke, few of which exceed 2 ft. 

 in diameter. The material is loosely piled together, and in many respects' 

 resembles the terminal moraine of the Hooker Glacier or the lateral moraines 

 of the Tasman. It varies from 10 ft. to 160 ft. thick, and is specially well 

 exposed on the Awatere side of Maxwell's Pass. 



The Vernon drifts, with their basal glacial debris, form the divide between 

 the Lower Wairau and Lower Awatere, rising in places to a height of over 

 2,000 ft. above the sea. \n places they rest on the older Pliocene clays of 

 the Awatere series. Like the Shades and Kekerangu deposits, they are in 

 places tilted at high angles, in others traversed by faults. That they are 

 Pleistocene seems almost certain. 



Waiau Glacial Valley. 



The southern portion of Marlborough is traversed by the Liland and 

 Seaward Kaikoura chains, which are separated by the gorgelike Clarence 

 Valley. Ten miles north of the Kaikoura Peninsula the seaward chain 

 pursues a south-west course, which carries it further and further inland, 

 so that when it crosses into the prolongation of the Province of Nelson 

 that protrudes itself between North Canterbury and South Marlborough 

 it is no longer a seaward but an inland range of mountains, still forming, 

 as it does further north, the southern wall of the Clarence Valley. 



Five miles south of the Kaikoura Peninsula there begins another coastal 

 range that extends southward to Cheviot and North Canterbury. Between 

 this coastal range and the Seaward Kaikouras, now an inland chain, there 

 lies a wide, well-defined valley extending from the Upper Waiau and 

 Hanmer Plains to Kaikoura. When standing at the Hanmer River it is 

 at once seen that this valley was the course followed by the ancient Waiau 

 Glacier as it flowed towards the sea, and also of the Waiau River before 

 the cutting of the present gorge. 



The evidences of prolonged and intense glaciation are everywhere present 

 from the Hanmer Plains to the sea at Kaikoura Peninsula, in the shape of 

 smooth, flowing, ice-shorn contours, truncated spurs, spurless ridges, isolated 

 "ice-grooved and whalebacked hills remaining in the floor of the glacial valley, 

 roches moutounees, and moraine debris. 



The Waiau glacial valley is easily identified, as the inland coach-road 

 from Kaikoura to the Upper Waiau follows along its floor for the greater 

 part of the way. It is not now drained by a trunk river, but is crossed 

 transversely by a number of large streams that descend from the southern 

 slopes of the Seaward Kaikouras, and reach the sea by deep, narrow gorges 

 cut through the coastal range. Beginning at the Kaikoura end, we first have 

 the Kahautara River and its branches, then the Conway River, and lastly 

 the Mason River, with its tributary the Lottery. These rivers have deeply 

 dissected the ancient glacial floor, which, however, can be clearly traced at 

 Greenhills. Highfield, and Mason. 



Near the north end of the chain of roches moutonnees running along the 

 floor of the glacial valley on the south side of the Conway, and locally know 

 as the " Whaleback," there are piles of morainic debris mainly composed of 

 -cingular blocks of Amuri limestone and Saurian greensand mingled with 



