TRANSACTIONS 
OF 
THE NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE, 
1868. 
Arr. L—On Boulders and Travelled Blocks in the Wellington Province. 
By J. C. Crawrorp, F.G.8. 
[ Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 7th April, 1868.] 
Ir is proposed to confine the remarks in this paper, firstly, to those boulders 
which. are of considerable size ; or secondly, those which appear to belong to 
rocks not found én situ in this part of the country. 
Under the former head we find in numerous localities—as, for instance, 
on Belmont Hill, on the Porirua Road between the Tutaemanu Peninsula 
and Duck Creek, at Makara, &c.—large blocks of dioritie sandstone appa- 
rently deposited in lines, and generally resting upon decomposing sandstones. ` 
Several theories may be propounded as to the mode of deposition of the 
blocks. : 
Firstly, they may be the hard nuclei of strata the softer parts of which 
have decomposed. 
Secondly, they may show the lines of old watercourses before denudation 
had worn down the valleys to their present depth. 
_ Thirdly, they may be ice-carried. Although the dioritie blocks are of 
the nature and character of rocks in situ in the neighbourhood, yet rocks of 
the same character abound on the opposite side of the Strait, as also 
generally throughout the Tararua range; so that there is no primá facie 
reason why these boulders may not have travelled from a distance, as well 
as those of the second class, which we propose afterwards to consider. 
The second class of boulders consists of rocks not found in this vicinity 
and which must have been brought from a distance. Of these not many 
have yet been discovered. I have myself found the following :— 
1. A block of granite about a foot long, found between Evans and 
Lyall Bays, several hundred feet from and about twelve feet above high 
