146 



NATURE 



\ytine 15, 1876 



even by the ton." Much of the crude material which 

 yields these beautiful and costly products of the conti- 

 nental martufactories is exported from England to be 

 worked up and reimported. The reason of this lies in 

 the more intimate union of science and manufactures 

 which prevails abroad. The chemical manufacturer on 

 the continent finds it to his interest to attach a sound and 

 properly-trained chemist to his works to improve the 

 established methods of production and to seek to discover 

 new processes. 



With the space at our disposal it is impossible to do 

 more than merely indicate the scope and character of this 

 series of excellent treatises. There are one or two little 

 matters which need revision, and which the editor will 

 doubtless set right in future editions : for example, the 

 combining proportion of tin is not usually stated as 58, 

 nor that of zinc as 32-6. Perhaps the most serious draw- 

 back is the very sparing use of illustrations. When given 

 they are generally very good ; nothing could exceed the 

 beauty and finish of the cuts accompanying Mr. Watts' 

 article on cotton. We are sorry that the example thus 

 set has not been more generally followed. T. 



MUTTON'S " GEOLOGY OF OTAGO" 

 Report on the Geolosry and Gold-fields of Otae^o. By F. W. 

 Hutton, F.G.S., Provincial Geologist, and G. H. F. 

 Ulrich, F.G.S., &c. (Dunedin : Mills, Dick, and Co. ; 

 London : Sampson Low and Co., 1876.) 



1"'HE Southern Province of New Zealand is one of 

 great interest from the variety of its physical fea- 

 tures which faithfully indica:te the wide range of geo- 

 logical formations of which it is built up. The snow-clad 

 ridge of " The Southern Alps," with numerous pointed 

 peaks and serrated ridges, runs along the western coast, 

 and is penetrated by deep *' sounds," or fiords, not unlike 

 some of those on the west coast of Norway. Mount 

 Aspiring, at the northern border of the province, reaches 

 an elevation of 9,940 feet, while several other points rise 

 upwards of 8,000 feet above the sea, forming altogether a 

 grand background, from which the rest of the country 

 descends towards the eastern coast in a series of 

 rolling downs, diversified by deep valleys and numerous 

 lakes. The rivers are remarkable for, in several cases, 

 and with much perversity, cutting through ridges, and 

 crossing the boundaries of the formations, in a way that 

 not long ago would have been attributed to the effects of 

 mighty " convulsions of Nature," but which the physical 

 geologist is now able to account for on very different prin- 

 ciples. The Southern Alps contain glaciers which, as Mr. 

 Hutton shows very clearly, extended considerably beyond 

 their present bounds on two occasions in later Tertiary 

 times, and to this agency he refers the excavation of the 

 rock basins which now constitute nearly all the lakes of 

 the hilly districts. An excellent view of this chain of 

 snowy mountains will be found in Dr. von Hoch- 

 stetter's elaborate work on New Zealand ; in which 

 Mount Cook, Mount Tasman, and the adjacent mountain 

 giants are seen towering to an elevation of 13,200 feet 

 above the waters of the ocean. 



The work before us is a very carefully prepared, and 

 scrupulously accurate, report on the physical features and 

 geological structure of the district of Otago which, under 



the direction of Dr. Hector, the author has explored and 

 mapped. The arrangement of the matter is go:)d, and 

 the descriptions succ net, while the writer is careful to 

 notice the labours of others in the same field of research. 

 The roughness of some of the woodcut illustrations, which 

 one cannot fail to notice, is perhaps inseparable from a 

 work brought out in a young colony, and is not to be laid 

 to the charge of the author. 



As already observed, the geological formations of 

 Otago have a wide range in time, extending from the 

 crystalline masses of the New Zealand Alps (possibly 

 referable lo the Laurentian period) through the repre- 

 sentatives of the Lower Silurian, Carboniferous, Triassic, 

 Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary times down to the 

 present day. The thickness of some of these older forma- 

 tions is doubtless very great, but the difficulty which the 

 author feels in estimating the apparent thickness of some 

 of these formations at the amount deduced from the dip 

 of the beds may probably be overcome by supposing that 

 the beds are folded over on themselves — a phenomenon 

 of very common occurrence in such districts as that of 

 the New Zealand Alps. The Otago formations have very 

 properly received names derived from localities where 

 they are well represented. The reference to the equivalent 

 formations in Europe is given with some hesitation ; never- 

 theless, it cannot be doubted that on the whole these 

 determinations are substantially correct — even if we sup- 

 pose a relative, rather than an absolute, synchronism 

 owing to the vast intervening space between Europe and 

 New Zealand ; and for all purposes of comparison it is 

 not of the slightest importance whether it is one or 

 the other. 



The great oscillations of level through which New 

 Zealand has passed are well described and illustrated by 

 Mr. Hutton under the head of " Historical Geology." 

 These correspond to some extent with the movements 

 which in Britain and Europe have enabled us to define 

 the limits of the three great divisions of geological time. 

 Towards the close of the Palaeozoic period " New Zealand 

 probably formed a subordinate part of a large continent, 

 which, judging by the similarity of the shells and plants, 

 joined in the following formations with those of Aus- 

 tralia, India, and Europe, probably stretched far away to 

 the northward" (p. 75). 



At the commencement of the Triassic period this con- 

 tinent began in New Zealand to be submerged ; and with 

 one or more slight oscillations this subsidence continued 

 till towards the middle of the Jurassic period, when the 

 whole country was again elevated, and the chain of the 

 New Zealand Alps was formed. Great denudation of 

 the upraised beds ensued, as they remained expased to 

 the atmosphere till the later Cretaceous period. Hence 

 the unconformity between the Upper Cretaceous and the 

 Lower Jurassic rocks (the Warpara and Putataka forma- 

 tions), and the entire absence of the intervening strata. 

 Since the great upheaval here referred to, the New Zealand 

 Alps have never been totally submerged, though some- 

 times deeply depressed. 



The Upper Cretaceous period was one of submergence 

 to all but the higher elevations, and at its close there was 

 another elevation, accompanied by disturbances of the 

 strata, resulting in an unconformity between the Tertiary 

 beds and all those of older date. These former are found 



