130 Eeports and Proceedings, 



mode of formation of certain Lake-basins in New Zealand." By 

 W. T. Locke Travers, Esq. Communicated by Sir C. Lyell, Bart., 



F.E.S., F.a.s. 



The author's observations had been chiefly directed to the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Spencer mountains, which occupy the centre of the 

 area constituting the Provinces of Nelson and Marlborough, in the 

 Middle Island, and in this paper he more particularly described 

 Lake Arthur, Lake Howick, and Lake Tennyson, with the rivers 

 flowing out of them. After describing the nature and mode of 

 occurrence of certain Post-pliocene boulder-beds overlying older 

 Tertiary deposits in the vicinity of Lake Arthur, Mr. Travers showed 

 that that lake owes its existence to the presence of a moraine nearly 

 a mile and a half in width, and extending for several miles down 

 the valley. Similar facts were then described as having been ob- 

 served at Lakes Howick and Tennyson ; and attention was specially 

 drawn to their great depth, Lake Howick being 1000 feet deep 

 rather less than half way up, and the others also attaining a depth 

 of several hundred feet. The valleys of the Kivers Dillon and the 

 Clarence present abundant evidence of the former existence of enor- 

 mous glaciers in them, and these the author described in detail. 



In conclusion Mr. Travers stated that, although he had confined 

 his remarks to the lake-basins found amongst the spurs of the 

 Spencer mountains, he firmly believed that all the lakes which lie 

 in the valleys of rivers debouching on the Canterbury Plains owe 

 their existence to moraine-dams which have the same foundations 

 as the Post-pliocene shingle of which the plains themselves are 

 formed ; and that, therefore, the sites of those lakes were occupied 

 by ice at the commencement of the period of depression, and so 

 continued for some time after the re-emergence of the upper part 

 of the plains above the level of the sea. 



2. " On the occurrence of dead littoral shells in the bed of the 

 G-erman Ocean, forty miles from the coast of Aberdeen." By 

 Kobert Dawson, Esq. Communicated by T. F. Jamieson, Esq., 

 F.G.S. 



The occurrence of shells of Purpura lapillus, Litorina rudis, Solen 

 siliqua, and Mytilus edulis, in a worn and semi-fossil condition, at 

 depths of 36, 40, and 42 fathoms, on the bank known as "the Long 

 Forties," seemed to the author, in conjunction with other and well- 

 known facts, to point to a time, towards the close of the Glacial 

 period, when the British islands stood higher above the sea than 

 they do at present. The fact of four species having been found in 

 the course of one day's dredging was, Mr. Dawson considered, suffi- 

 cient to render it probable that they had lived and died where they 

 were found, and did not owe their presence at that depth and dis- 

 tance from land to any mere accident. 



3. " On the glacial phenomena of Caithness." By T. F. Jamieson, 

 Esq., F.G.S. 



The glacial drift of Caithness occurs in sheets filling up the low 

 troughs and winding hollows which form the beds of the streams, 

 the rocks on the higher ground being either bare or hidden by a 



