Wellington Philosophical. Society. | 379 
supposition would necessitate the subsequent total removal of the barrier from 
Cape Terawiti to Pencarrow lighthouse, which must have existed to form the 
lake. This could not have been removed since the period in which Mr. 
Crawford supposed that the harbour existed as a lake, and if therefore it had 
ever been a lake it must have been at a much more remote period, probably 
not later than the lower eocene. 
Mr. W. Travers attributed the boulders mentioned by the author to ballast 
for canoes. He had observed no trace of glacial action in the district, and it 
was impossible for him to conceive why the appearance of the action of ice 
should be absent if it was to that that the excavation of the harbour was to 
be attributed. 
The Hon. Mr. Mantell thought that more facts were required to prove 
the correctness of Mr. Crawford’s views. Sir Charles Lyell had collected many 
interesting facts regarding the effects of earthquakes in this district. He might 
mention, as an additional fact, that in 1855 a fence in the Wairarapa lying 
north and south bad all the rails drawn from the mortise holes, while one 
lying east and west had remained uninjured. 
The author considered that a glacier did pass down from the Hutt. Не. 
did not think there had been an outlet to Island Bay, but that the original 
outlet was through Evans Bay. He agreed that a lake generally had only 
one outlet, but that meant one at a time. There is no reason why lakes may 
not have had different outlets in different periods. 
9. “On Cnemiornis calcitrans, Owen, showing its Affinity to the Lamelli- 
rostrate Natatores,” by James Hector, M.D., F.R.S. (Transactions, p. 76.) 
The skeleton, on which the author founded his paper, was exhibited. 
The Hon. Captain Fraser, who discovered the bones, gave some interesting 
information regarding the locality where they were obtained. 
3. A letter respecting the Recent Change in the Apex of Mount Cook, 
received from Mr. Edmund Barff, was communicated by Dr. Hector. 
* 9nd July, 1873.— When I visited the southern parts of Westland in 
your company several years since, you remarked, on one occasion, that if ever 
a favourable opportunity should present itself for making the ascent of Mount 
Cook, an effort should be made to explore the mountain. It appears to me that 
there is such an opportunity at the present time. There has been an immense 
landslip on the south-western side of the peak, which appears to have originally 
covered a surface of at least a mile and a half in diameter, and which, viewed 
through a telescope at this distance, is seen to be scattered over the side of the 
mountain in immense irregular masses of rock. ‘The slip occurred three weeks 
since, and it is a somewhat strange circumstance that the miners who are 
working in close proximity to the Francis Joseph Glacier heard no sound 
