FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 319 
miles and in places are as sharp as a tent ridge for scores of 
miles. West of Canterbury for over two hundred miles the 
erest is barely thirty miles from the sea. Many streams flowing 
down the well-watered, western slope have an average gradient 
of approximately three hundred feet per mile. Scores of tower- 
ing peaks culminate in Mt. Cook (12,345 ft.), Mt. Tasman 
(11,400 ft.), Malte Brun (10,400 ft.) and Mt. Sefton (10,300 ft.). 
To the south are Mt. Earnslaw (9,100 ft.) and Mt. Aspiring 
(9,900 ft.). In the vicinity of the latter peak in latitude 44°20’ 
the main divide breaks up into a number of ridges which spread 
fan-wise to the south and southwest. On the plains east of the 
Alpine chain are a number of parallel ridges much lower and 
more worn. The boldest of these are the Kaikoura ranges of 
Marlborough, averaging eight thousand feet in height and are 
apparently a continuation of the Taraura range which forms a 
part of the main divide of North Island. The subsidiary ranges 
of the plains as well as the Southern Alps are made up of folded 
rocks of late Paleozoic and of Mesozoic age. 
West of Dunedin in Otago is a broken plain made up of a 
series of gigantic worn-down block mountains. They show ex- 
cellent examples of horst and graben structure, the uplifted 
portions being broad plateaus and the sunken areas making 
flat-bottomed basins, some of the latter being filled-up lake 
basins. The block mountains are thought by Park to be ‘‘up- 
lifted portions of a maritime base-level of erosion.’’ 
The Canterbury plain south of the Kaikouras comprises the 
hinterland of the city of Christchurch. It is alluvial in origin 
and covers an area parallel to the coast, roughly forty miles 
wide by one hundred and fifty miles long, and slopes gradually 
to the sea from a height of fifteen hundred feet at its western 
edge. This plain is very valuable farming and grazing land, 
and it supports a prosperous people. 
The so-called cold water lakes of the southwestern part of 
South Island lie in overdeepened valleys gouged out to great 
depth by former glaciers and whose outlets have in some cases 
been blocked by glacial moraine dams. Their floors in many 
instances have been cut below sea-level while their surfaces are 
upwards of a thousand feet or more above the sea. Their depths 
in proportion to their other dimensions are therefore exception- 
ally great. In shape each tends to be linear and corresponds to 
that segment of the valley whose deeply gouged bed it occupies. 
