in New Zealand. 243 



Professor Park says the whole of the under side of the boulder is 

 scratched, but when I was there the vegetation round about it 

 was very thick, but that portion of the under surface which I saw 

 is clearly scratched. The surface of the boulder is much decomposed 

 and weathered, and the little crystals composing the andesite can be 

 rubbed off with the finger-nail, and in fact the surface can almost 

 be scratched with the finger-nail, and scratches can easily be made 

 on it with a knife blade. 



The boulder rests on a slope and has evidently moved down from 

 higher ground and must move further down in the future towards 

 the river. The scratches could, in my belief, easily have been made 

 by the movement of the boulder over gravelly soil or over other 

 stones. Glacial scratches could not have survived the weathering to 

 which the surface of this boulder has evidently been subjected. 



It is true that on the summit of Puapehu at the present day there 

 exists a small glacier or ice-field at an altitude of from 7,000 to 

 9,000 feet, but there is nothing to show that it was ever more 

 extensive or that Ruapehu had attained its present altitude in the 

 Pleistocene period. Professor Marshall has pointed out that the slopes 

 of the volcano show no evidence of former glaciation. 



The question certainly arises as to how these large andesite 

 boulders come to be scattered over the countryside in such numbers 

 west and south-east of the parent volcano down the Hautapu Valley. 

 Until the district has been accurately surveyed and their distribution 

 mapped it is difficult to say what was the actual mode or direction of 

 transport. They seem to be relics of former gravel or boulder beds 

 which have survived and in some cases become isolated owing to their 

 large size, but exactly at what period the beds were deposited cannot 

 be asserted at present. 



I may point out here that it rests with the upholders of a glacial 

 origin for any beds to show that the phenomena cannot have 

 originated in any other way than by glacial action. If their opponents 

 cannot exactly explain the mode of origin of certain deposits it does 

 not necessarily follow that the beds are glacial. 



The deep and immature rock valleys seen in the southern part of 

 the North Island, and especially round and near Wellington, are the 

 very converse to what one would expect to find on the ice-sheet 

 hypothesis. Under ice-sheet conditions they would have immediately 

 been filled up with glacial debris. 



Turning now to the South Island, the evidence that there was 

 anything in the nature of an ice-sheet rests primarily on some deposits 

 near the east coast of Otago. The largest of these is called, the 

 Taieri or Henley moraine. Professor Park describes it as the largest 

 and most important pile of glacial drift in New Zealand. It forms 

 the range of hills bounding the eastern side of the Taieri Plain, and 

 rests against a ridge of mica-schist which separates that plain from 

 the sea and rises to a height of 1,000 feet above sea-level. It extends 

 from Allanton, 15 miles south of Dunedin, to a point in the Clutha 

 Yalley, a distance of about 25 miles. Material very similar to that 

 which composes the Taieri " moraine" also forms the celebrated Blue 

 Spur near Lawrence, which Professor Park also describes as glacial 



