96 Capt. F. W. Hutton on the Origin of the 



I think that this last hypothesis presents far fewer difficulties 

 than the former, especially when we remember that there are 

 no true glacial phenomena in New Zealand. It is indeed 

 hard to believe that these supposed glacial marks are due to 

 a general cold period in the southern hemisphere ; for if such 

 had been the case the South Island of New Zealand must have 

 been covered with snow and ice, and almost all life would 

 have been destroyed, a supposition which Mr. W. T. L. 

 Travers has shown it is impossible for us to allow*. 



We come now to South Africa. Mr. Wallace says that, 

 u according to several writers," there are traces of ancient 

 glaciers in the Transvaal. But so far as I know only two 

 writers (Mr. Stow and Capt. Aylward) have expressed this 

 opinion from a personal knowledge of the country ; and Mr. 

 Wallace has forgotten to mention that, at the meeting of the 

 Geological Society at which Mr. Stow's paper was read, Mr. 

 Griesbach, who had examined the district, " disputed the pos- 

 sibility of any of the gravels (of the Vaal) being of glacial 

 origin "t- Again, Mr. Wallace says that "we have here 

 all the chief surface phenomena characteristic of a glaciated 

 country " + . But this is not quite correct. The only pheno- 

 mena mentioned are striations, rounded hills, and unstratified 

 gravels and clays, with boulders, called by Mr. Wallace 

 morainic matter. There are no perched blocks, no terminal 

 moraines, no glacier lakes. Now rounded hills occur in many 

 places where no ice has ever been, various marks have 

 often been mistaken for glacial strias, and tumultuous accumu- 

 lations of gravel with boulders occur in all mountainous 

 countries liable to floods. The only unmistakable evidences 

 of ancient glacier action — viz. terminal moraines and lakes — 

 are absent. It is true that Dr. Shaw mentions abundant 

 lacustrine deposits along the Vaal Biver§, and these may 

 occupy old glacier lakes. But if so, these deposits clearly do 

 not " point to a period so recent that it must almost certainly 

 have been contemporaneous with the glacial period of the 

 northern hemisphere." On the contrary, they point to a time 

 older, perhaps, than the glacier epoch of New Zealand. There 

 is also another and quite distinct line of argument, which 

 leads to exactly the same conclusion. The mountain-system 

 of the Transvaal, in lat. 25° S. to 27° S., may be compared 

 to the New-Zealand Alps, between the latitudes 44° S. and 

 45° S. The South-African mountains are certainly not higher, 



* Trans. N. Z. Inst. vii. p. 409. 



t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxviii. p. 27. 



X ' Island Life,' p. 158, footnote. 



§ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxviii. p. 20. 



