Tuousox.— Glacial Action in Otago. 313 
These stris are not to be mistaken for harrow-marks, often seen on stones 
where fields are in cultivation. They are always found on the lower surface 
of the boulder as it lay on the ground bedded for ages, and by which position 
alone were the marks preserved from disintegration. They are never found 
on the upper surface of the stone, and are only to be sought for by turning 
over the block. At one of Sidey's fields almost every tenth stone has the ice 
Scores on it, deeply indented in the surface, and which marks it had received in 
remote ages. Yet there are the marks, as patent and as certain as on the day 
they were made—a proof of ice action—a proof that this country was once the 
region of perpetual frost and snow, and unfit for the habitation of man. 
The grooved rock iu the Kaikorai Valley presents another lesson tending 
to the same conclusion. This rock juts out at a sharp turn of the main road, 
and appears at one time to have offered considerable opposition to the 
descending masses of ice, for over its whole surface grooves, nine inches to a 
foot in depth, are worn in the direction of the axis of the valley, and which 
have been preserved from disintegration by having been covered by a layer o 
clay after the ice action had ceased. 
Thus, according to my limited observation, I have advanced such facts as have 
occurred to me, proving the ice-bound nature of the surface and shores of this 
island as it existed in remote ages of this recent geological period. More 
extended observations may be made by those having more time and opportunity ; 
but I trust I have said enough. 
While we may admit, then, that much colder temperature than now exists 
has been proved, so also the converse has to be accepted, though it be not 
necessary to the present argument. In Europe, the existence in prior 
geological periods of tropical vegetation is abundantly exhibited in the fossil 
remains of low latitudes, and, as a matter of near interest to us, in the case of 
one of these fossils the Norfolk Island pine is, in óur age, the only remaining 
and living example. In New Zealand we have a parallel case tending to 
prove the same fact—the remains and gum of the kauri are found at this end 
of the islands, while the living tree is only to be found north of Auckland. No 
doubt, a more comprehensive knowledge of the geology of New Zealand, than 
I can claim to have, will confirm an alternation of temperature, not once, but 
for many times, 
With these preliminary observations I may now proceed with the more 
immediate object of the paper. In looking over some of the topographical 
maps executed by the officers of the Survey Department, I was struck with 
the regularly eurved beds of the valleys, notwithstanding that the country 
through which they wandered was of the most rugged and mountainous 
description. My attention was first drawn to the Manuherikia, a drawing of 
which is on the table, copied from a sketch which I made on its first exploration 
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