QUATERNARY CLIMATE GOMMITTHB. Si^ 



to a great extent as yet, still I think that during the next two year* 

 the glacier will recede to a considerable extent as the volume of ice 

 •eems to be shrinking some miles up the glacier." 



It is to be hoped that observations such as the above will be con- 

 tinued, especially if they are carried out by a competent observer, 

 for it may be possible to arrive at some idea whether or not these 

 changes are periodic in character, and, if so, what the length of the 

 period may be. 



A brief reference to Climatic Change is made in Marshall's Hand- 

 buck der Ri'gionalen Geologic, New Zealand, page 53. He mentions the 

 fact first recorded by Hutton, that mollusca characteristic of a northern 

 habitat are now found at Foveaux Strait, and that certain plants of 

 sub-tropical character occur in isolated places to the south of their 

 gener.il range, Hutton used this evidence to show that the climate 

 has never been colder than at present since later Tertiary times. The 

 shells just referred to are specially favoured by receiving the warm 

 water of the ocean current which crosses the Tasman Sea from the 

 neighbourhood of the coast of Australia, and strikes t|ie south-west 

 corner of New Zealand, but we know so little about the circumstances 

 which govern the possibilities of plants maintaining their stations when 

 they are near the limit of their range that conclusions drawn therefrom 

 are occasionally misleading. The occurrence of Rhopalostylis sppida 

 on Banks Peninsula was used by Hutton as an instance of the survival 

 in that specially favoured locality of a m^ore northern form, but it is 

 in all probability merely a cpse of a plant having reached its highest 

 range in latitude, as it is found sparingly at other places on the coast 

 to the north, although it can not stand the rigour of the winters on the 

 Canterbury Plains. Cyathea medullaris, besides occurring at Milford 

 Sound as noted by Marshall, flourishes freely on Stewart Island. Lo- 

 maria fraseri is certainly peculiar, as its furthest southern range in the 

 North Island is Taranaki, yet it is found freely at Westport along with 

 other plants such as Dracophyllum latifolium, Asplenium imibrosum, 

 Epacris pauciflora. If one considers the origin of the New Zealand 

 flora as a whole, it is obvious that there can have been no marked 

 Epfrigeration of the climate since Tertiary times, since that would have 

 resulted in the extirpation of the Malayan tropical and subtropical 

 element which, even under present conditions, is only just maintaining 

 its ground against the Antarctic element, unless the distribution of 

 the land was such that it allowed the Malayan plants to migrate north- 

 ward before an advancing ice sheet, and to come south again as the 

 climate grew milder. There are, however, serious obstacles in the way 

 of this explanation. 



The importance of the bearing of plant distribution and plant 

 ecology on the question of climate is felt most strongly by the members 

 of the Committee, and it is their unanimous opinion that the Committee 



