Cox.— Notes on Valley System on Western Flanks of Mount Cook. 581 
Dr. Haast, in describing his topographieal map of the Southern Alps 
for the Royal Geographical Society, mentions the fact that the Tasman 
Glacier had advanced about half a mile during the time which had 
elapsed between his visits there in 1862 and 1870; and in an earlier 
report on the West Coast, he has also given the height of the Francis 
Joseph Glacier above the sea at 750 feet. "These variations appear to point 
to the advance of the glacier during the past few years; and the absence, 
at the foot of the Fox Glacier at least, of any terminal moraine of conse- 
quence, adds further proof of the truth of this hypothesis. 
Arr. XC.—On the Reptilian Beds of New Zealand. By A. McKay. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 4th N ovember, 1876.] 
In March last, I received instructions to proceed to the Amuri Bluff for the 
purpose of making further collections and a measured section of the north- 
east face of the bluff. In my official report I confined myself to a state- 
ment of the facts observed by me; and now, with the permission of Dr. 
Hector, I contribute my views in the form of a paper to the Society. 
Before doing so I propose to shortly sketch the progress of the geologi- 
cal exploration of the Waipara and Amuri Bluff beds, as the views held as 
to the age of these vary considerably. 
In 1861 a notice of the first discovery of saurian remains, at the Waipara, 
by Mr. T. H. Cockburn Hood, was given by Professor Owen in a paper read 
before the British Association, from which it is to be inferred that he con- 
sidered the fossils to indicate a jurassic age for the formation period.* 
In 1864 Dr. Haast, in a paper dated, June, 1869, states that he examined 
the Waipara beds, at which time he considered the saurian beds to be of 
lower tertiary age.t In the same year Mr. John Buchanan, of the Geologi- 
cal Survey Department, examined and made collections from the Amuri 
Bluff beds, considering the Amuri limestone and overlying marls at that 
place as lower tertiary. } 
In the same report, from an examination of Mr. Buchanan’s collections, 
Dr. Hector was enabled to classify the beds as below :— 
Cretaceo-tertiary formation. 
A—Chalk marls, the upper parts of which are now known as the grey 
marls ; the lower as the Amuri limestone. 
* Proceedings of the British Association, 1861. 
+ “Trans. N.Z. Inst.,” Vol. IL, p. 189, 1866. 
t “ Geol, Reports," 1866-7, p. 39. 
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