OCEAN CONTOURS, S.W. PACIFIC. 435 



Kermaclec trench is not yet known, but it certainly reaches ahnost to 

 the latitude of the East Cape, a.nd water of 2,000 fathoms depth is 

 not far from the eastern entrance of Cook Strait. On the other hand, 

 shallow water appears to extend continuously to the Chatham Islands, 

 though a recent volume on the Geography of Australasia gives an area 

 of more than 3,000 fathoms between the two lands. This appears 

 to be due to an eri'oneous reading of 3,250 for 325 fathoms. Sound- 

 ings of less than 500 fathoms are said to have been found by Sir J. 

 Hector continuously from Macquarie to the Chathams, and this has 

 led Farquhar to extend the New Zealand plateau far to the eastwards. 

 All attempts to fiiad readings of these soundings have proved unsuc- 

 cessful, and, while it is probable that the plateau extends some 

 distance to the east, the two soundings of over 900 fathoms near 

 Otago Peninsula show there is much need for caution, Avhile north 

 east of the Campbell Island a sounding of 567 fathoms is recorded. 



Elsewhere in tlie Southern Ocean the soundings are extremely 

 few, and the boundaries between the different depths are certainly 

 problematical. It was a little disappointing that the " Discovery" 

 expedition did not add to its magnificent performance by taking a 

 line of soundings at any rate to the margin of the pack ice. 



Rock Fold.s. 

 Within later years we have received much infonnation as to the 

 lines of folding in the different areas of the Soutli-west Pacific. In 

 many instances the geologists who have investigated this matter have 

 been able to come to some conclusions as to the geological periods at 

 which the earth folds were formed. In particular, our thanks are due 

 to Professor David, Dr. Woolnough, Mr. Mawson, Dr. Bell, and the 

 officers of the reorganised geological survey of New Zealand. In 

 Australia all the limportant earth stresses connected wdth earth 

 folding appear to have acted before the Permo-Carboniferous period. 

 The direction of the folds, as shown in Professor David's map, is 

 mainly parallel to the present coast line. 



According to M. Barnard, an ancient line of folding appears to 

 have affected the older masses of New Caledonia before the deposition 

 of the Triassic rocks, but the absence of fossils makes it impossible 

 to an'ive at any exact statement as to the exact period of folding. 

 The direction was from south-west to north-east at right angles to the 

 present direction of land extension. Dr. Woolnough describes, in Fiji, 

 a series of ancient rocks folded along a N.N.E. S.S.W. line, but no 

 period can be assigned for the earth movement. 



In New Zealand, Gregory has frequently made reference to an 

 ancient line of rock folds directed south-east and north-west. In 

 Otago, one of the localities where this is described, there is a large 

 area of schist rocks referred by Hutton to the Arclipean ; by Hector, 

 provisionally, to the Silurian ; and by Park, in the Bvdletin No. 5, 

 " New Series of Geological Survey,'" the non-committal statement '"not 

 older than the Carboniferous or Devonian'" is made. My own obsei-va- 

 tions have shown that, in many sections, especially at Lower Clutha, 

 Tapanui, Athol, Hermitage, Browning-'s Pass, and the Waitaki Valley, 

 there is a gradual transition from unchanged sediments to completely 



