12 INAUGUEAL ADDEESS. 



Christchurch — for instance^ at Mount Pleasant, beliind 

 Godley Head liglithouse, which stands at the entrance 

 to Lyttelton Harbour — the variation is only 9° 3' east, 

 or 6° less than the normal ; while at Rolleston it is 15° 33', 

 and at Lake Coleridge 14° 2'. In Otago we have still 

 greater differences recorded, for we find at Flagstaff Hill, 

 which is an igneous formation, 14° 31', while at Nen- 

 thorn, thirty-five miles to' the north, in a schist forma- 

 tion, we find an entry of 35° 41'. 



In view of the fact that increased attention has been re- 

 cently directed to the marked effects on the direction and 

 intensity of the terrestrial magnetic currents of great lines 

 of fault along which earth-movements have taken place, such 

 as those which bring widely different geological formations 

 into discordant contact, with the probable production of 

 mineral veins, this subject of special magnetic surveys is 

 deserving of being undertaken in New Zealand. In Japan 

 and in the United States of America the results have 

 already proved highly suggestive. A comparison between 

 this country and Japan by such observations, especially if 

 combined with systematic and synchronous ' records by 

 modern seismographic instruments, would be of great ser- 

 vice to the physical geologist. There are many features in 

 common and many quite reversed in the orographic and 

 other physical features of these two countries. Both are 

 formed by the crests of great earth-waves lying north-east 

 and south-west, and parallel to, but distant from, con- 

 tinental areas, and both are traversed by great longitudinal 

 faults and fissures, and each by one great transverse fault. 

 Dr. Nauman, in a recent j)aper, names this transverse- 

 fault area in Japan the Fossa Magna, and it corresponds 

 in position in relation to Japan with Cook Strait in relation 

 to New Zealand. But the Fossa Magna of Japan has been 

 filled up there with volcanic products, and is the seat of 

 the loftiest active volcano in Japan. In Cook Strait, 

 and its vicinity, as you are aware, there are no volcanic 

 rocks, but there and southward through the Kaikouras 

 evidence of recent fault-movements on an extensive scale is 

 apparent, and it would be most interesting to ascertain if 



