332 . Transactions.—G eology. 
Wairarapa, and Oreti, whose outlets are advancing on the sea, being into deep 
bays with shallow waters, will tend intermittently to diverge from their 
channels. Hence, if the theory prove a correct one, there might be some 
"utility in the careful investigation of the curves of these rivers in regard to 
their ordinary flood and glacial drift marks, ùe., their highest banks, which 
would clearly display the points where the two first tend, in any measure, 
to overflow the latter.* It is certain as noonday that nature always works 
by law, and there can be no waste of human energy when it is expended in 
the investigation of the course that law pursues. 
In conclusion, I may venture to state that the more we study these subjects 
the more we will be convinced that nature as much abhors cataclysms and 
sudden catastrophes as she is said to abhor a vacuum. Нег changes are 
gradual, and her operations, in changing from latitude to latitude, present 
themselves to us merely as accelerations in one zone and retardations in 
another, Thus, if the scoring out of the valleys by glaciers is in full force in 
‘Victoria Land at the present day, such action, to all intents, has ceased 
here. That the ceasing has been gradual, prolonged over hundreds of thousands 
of years, I think will be a generally-received opinion ; so, also, will this be 
accepted, that the commencing of the glacial age, with its prodigious over- 
flowing and deadening influences, was also as prolonged. To living creatures 
the change would come on so slowly as to be harmless and unobservable, and 
what may now be the tendency of our climate could only be indicated by 
rigidly scientific observations continued over a century. 
* Drainage and embanking operations will be under the same law, also the cutting 
of sludge channels in mining. Here embankments should be as the parabola ; 
and channel beds as the ellipse. In large works the money saved would be enormous 
by the adherence to correct principle. 
