304 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
the city looks like a flat checker-board, and out on the western 
horizon the snowy Alps stretch as far as the eye can see. Lyttel- 
ton, the port town, is seven miles distant from Christchurch and 
is built around af old sunken crater through one side of which 
there is access to the sea. From this place there is a tunnel 
one and one-half miles long on the way to Christchurch. 
The distance from Christchurch to Dunedin is about two 
hundred miles, and there is very good express train service. A 
day’s stop at Oamaru gave opportunity to see the famous shell 
beds at Target Gully and the hills of loess north of town. This 
loess, seen in a road cutting, is twenty-five feet thick and is as 
typical loess as that near Iowa City. Its origin is apparently 
similar, it being an eolian deposit blown from the dry glacial 
flats toward the sea during the closing stages of the Ice Age. 
Dunedin is a prosperous substantial city settled largely by 
Scotch immigrants. It is picturesquely located on a group of 
hills at the head of a long inlet known as Otago Harbor. Its 
wharves, however, can be reached only at high tide by large 
vessels. Here are the main offices of the Union Steamship Com- 
pany, and there are numerous thriving factories. The railways 
of the Otago district center here, and the port is the outlet of 
a rich farming and grazing district as well as of coal and gold 
ore. Dunedin is the site of University College and has schools 
of Medicine and Dentistry. There is a fine museum and a well 
known School of Mines of which Professor James Park is the 
director. 
LAKE WAKATIPU AND THE REMARKABLES 
From Dunedin we made a rapid side trip up into western 
Otago to see famous Lake Wakatipu nestling at the foot of the 
Remarkables and other bold mountain ranges which deploy out 
of the Southern Alps. The railway passes through a prosperous 
country and through many attractive and busy towns and vil- 
lages. Balclutha, latitude 46°17’, was approximately the south- 
ernmost point we touched. As we approached the drier foot- 
hills we saw considerable evidence of damage to agriculture by 
rabbits. Systematic ‘‘rabbiting’’ has kept this pest pretty well 
in check over all New Zealand, but it was a revelation to see 
wagon-loads of rabbit skins going to market and scores of pelts 
drying on fences and bushes about the country homes. 
The plains of Otago are a series of long slopes which end 
