New Zealand Glaciers 167 



Mr. Lubbock described a visit, recently made with M. 

 Lartet, Mr. Christy, and Mr. J. Evans, to some caves in 

 the department of the Dordogne. They contained flint 

 implements of the roughest type, with very numerous articles 

 of reindeer horn harpoons, needles, etc. very neatly 

 made and finished, besides figures of animals, such as the 

 horse and the reindeer. 1 



June i6th, I58th meeting. Mr. Gassiot exhibited some 

 examples of colour photography, but they were fugitive in 

 character and could be exhibited only in diffused light, so 

 that the result was not considered to be satisfactory. 



Mr. Paget gave an account of a patient in the hospital, 

 one of whose kidneys had been exposed by a wound in the 

 lumbar region, so that it could be observed. Its natural 

 colour appeared to be pale, like that of blotting paper. 



Dr. Hooker read a letter from Mr. Haast 2 about some 

 New Zealand glaciers. The west coast, he said; for the 

 last fifty miles south of the Totara River 3 is formed by 

 enormous moraines, Cliffy Head, Bad Head, Albert Head 

 being only terminal moraines of former glaciers. The largest 

 glacier, equal in size to the Tasman, descends to within 

 500 feet of the sea-level and eight miles from it. But on 

 both sides of this glacier, luxuriant forests are growing, with 

 areca pines and tree-ferns. Mr. Haast had also found in 



1 The working out of these caves, some of the more noted being in the 

 limestone cliffs by the river Vezere, was continued for some years by Lartet 

 and Christy and the results embodied in Reliquiae Aquitanicae (1865-75). 

 Notices of them will be found hi almost any book dealing with ancient man, 

 and the time when this race existed is called (from one of the caves) the 

 Magdalenian epoch. It is later than that of Mousterian (Neanderthal) 

 man. The climate was colder than now, the reindeer being abundant 

 in that part of France. 



2 Afterwards Sir J. F. Julius von Haast (1824-1887), distinguished as 

 a geologist and explorer of New Zealand ; discovering coal and gold fields 

 south-west of Nelson, making the first expedition (in 1862) into the Tasman 

 district, Professor of Geology in New Zealand University, and author of 

 works on the geology of those islands. 



3 The Totara River enters the sea on the west coast a little norJh of that 

 from the Franz Josef Glacier (which descends to 692 feet above sea-level 

 and fourteen miles from the sea). The Fox Glacier comes down to 670 feet 

 and within 10 miles of the beach. Perhaps this was the one mentioned. 

 See A. P Harper, Pioneer Work in Alps of New Zealand, page 8. 



