Tuomson.—Glacial Action in Otago. 309 
referred to in the foregoing paper, and especially the part surrounding the 
Spencer Mountains, presents features which, properly investigated, are 
calculated to assist materially in solving many moot points in connection with 
the action of glaciers, 
Art. LL—0O» the Glacial Action and Terrace Formations of South New 
| Zealand. By J. T. Тномѕох, F.R.G.S. 
(With Illustrations.) 
[Read before the Otago Institute, 11th February, 1873.] 
THIs paper is limited to the post-tertiary period, as will be seen by its 
designation, and the remarks are drawn from occasional observations that 
I have been able to make during these last seventeen years, while proceeding 
over the country in various directions on official duty in connection with the 
Survey Department. For the facts and figures availed of I am largely 
indebted to the work of the officers of the survey staff, as set forth in the topo- 
graphical maps. AsI have always been engaged in duties which claimed atten- 
tion before the subject in hand, I bring forward my results as those of an 
occasional, and not those of a regular, observer. Much as I have travelled 
over this part of New Zealand, I have seldom had time to diverge from the 
trodden path to follow up or trace formations; my essay can, therefore, be at 
best incomplete, but if it induces those who have more learning and leisure at 
their command to pursue the enquiry, the time of this meeting taken up in 
listening to me will, then, at all events, not be entirely lost. 
We live here, at this epoch, in what we settlers from the British Islands 
eall the most agreeable temperature of the temperate zone, our annual mean 
being that of Devonshire, England. That the temperature should ever have 
been different, probably the earnest money-seekers of our fellow colonists have 
never enquired. To the members of this Society, who are lovers of science by 
natural bias, and who spend much of their time in seeking knowledge for its 
sake only, the question, if it has not arisen to their minds before this, will 
now interest them. 
In the older formations abundant proof is to be obtained of the great 
alternations of heat and cold to which this world was subjected, information 
on which point is to be obtained from the works of Lyell, Ansted, and others. 
To notice these would be to take us out of the limits of the present theme, 
and to hold to it we must consider the old geologieal periods to have passed— 
to have performed their functions, as it were, in raising the mountains and 
