Crawrorp.—On the Old Lake system of New Zealand, 871 
have been a lake while the Manawatu River was engaged in cutting its way 
through the Gorge, and possibly there may have been a lake of some extent 
in the Patea country before the tributaries of the Rangitikei, the Hautapu, 
and the Moahuanga succeeded in excavating the deep canons through 
which they traverse the marine tertiaries. 
IT am tempted to mention a point connected with the vicinity of Welling- 
ton, and, therefore, with the theory of a considerable former elevation of 
land in this vicinity, and possibly, with a lake far exceeding in dimensions 
the present limits of the harbour. We find at considerable elevation 
rounded water-worn pebbles sparsely embedded in the clay and soil lying 
over the rock of the hills. How these pebbles got there has to me been a 
puzzle for along time. I am inclined to think that a lake standing at an 
elevation of perhaps hundreds of feet over the present sea level is the only 
means of accounting for the phenomenon. I should say that these pebbles, 
as chiefly observed by me on the Peninsula, look as if they had been 
deposited at some distance from the head of the lake, in fact, where the 
deposit would be rare. I think further investigation will show that deposits 
of water-worn material, found along the ranges surrounding Port Nichol- 
son, will be more easily accounted for by a theory of lacustrine origin than 
by bringing in the agency of glaciers. 
To compare small things with great, it has been held that the Black 
Sea and the Mediterranean once formed a succession of lakes. Before the 
waters of the Black Sea had opened the channels of the Bosphorus and the 
Dardanelles, that sea would have formed the upper lake, with a subsidiary 
small one in the Sea of Marmora. 
The soundings near Malta and Sicily show that, allowing for a former 
greater height of the sea bottom, a barrier probably existed there which 
enclosed the Eastern Mediterranean, and formed it and the Levant into a 
second lake; Malta being then connected with Africa. Indeed, the 
soundings show a channel which looks as if it had been excavated by the 
waters of a large river. The third lake would extend from the Channel 
of Malta to the Pillars of Hercules. It does not follow that these lakes 
were fresh water. Large basins of salt water may have been left during 
geological changes, and the influx of river water may not have been more 
than sufficient to balance the great evaporation of those regions, combined 
with the outpour into the Atlantic, which gradually removed the barriers. 
We may compare Lake Taupo to the Black Sea, the Upper Waikato to 
the Eastern Mediterranean Lake, and the Lower Waikato to the Western 
Lake. 
Having prepared the way by the establishment of large lakes on the 
North Island for something similar with regard to the South Island, I now 
