Hutron.—On the Last Great Glacier Period in N.Z. 389 
emergence above the sea-level, by the ready percolation of rain-water contain- 
ing carbonic acid through such porous strata. 
Dr. Haast also describes at Timaru (Report on Timaru district, p. 4) silt, 
underlaid in places by fine clay or gravel, covering basalt, and sloping up from 
the sea to a height of 686 feet, and containing recent marine shells near the 
sea (Cant. Plains, p. 8). 
Mr. Hacket gives evidence (Geo. Reports, 1868-69, pp. 10 and 11) of a rise 
of the land near the Okarita and Waikukupa Rivers, on the west coast of the 
South Island. It is evident that the deposits he here describes are not ordinary 
morainic accumulations, but it remains yet to be proved whether these beds 
were deposited in a lake or in the sea, or whether they are of morainic origin 
at all. 
Dr. Hector, in describing the gold fields of the west coast of the South 
Island (Progress Report, 1866-67, p. 29), says that the gold drifts have been 
“carried out from the mountains by the rivers, and deposited upon a gradually 
changing coast line. They thus have a general distribution parallel to what 
was the western shore of the island at the epoch of their deposit ; and by 
tracing the successive lines of elevation, and allowing for the consequent 
changes which have occurred in the direction of the drainage channels of the 
country, we are enabled to form an opinion as to the extent and position of 
the auriferous leads.” Further on he speaks of the first group of auriferous 
alluviums as being the “ earliest formed and most elevated of these drifts,” but 
he does not give the height to which it attains; but the third group he calls 
“beach terraces which extend to an altitude of 220 feet, and mark several 
changes in the level of the shore line within a comparatively recent geological 
period,” so that we must infer that the first group attains a greater height 
than 220 feet. — 
At Taranaki, Dr. Hector also describes (Progress Report, 1866-7, p. 3), 
“ pleistocene deposits consisting of stratified gravels and sand-rock, with beds 
of lignite,” reaching an altitude of 150 feet above the sea, which he says 
“ must be regarded as in some way connected with an ancient coast line, and 
from the circumstance that at the base of this formation in many places, and 
underneath the lignite seams, there is a layer of rolled broken shells of existing 
species, we may infer that these gravels have been deposited in lagoons parallel 
with the coast line during a gradual elevation of the land, and that they have 
been overtaken, as it were, by the encroachment of the sea, and exposed in the 
sea cliffs after they are 80 to 100 feet above the present level of the tide.” 
Mr. R. Pharazyn, in a paper read to this Society (Trans. N.Z. Inst., II., 
p- 158), gives evidence of recent elevation near Wanganui; and Dr. Haast 
(Report on the Cant. Plains, p. 8) at Timaru. 
In the Nelson province Mr. W. T. L. Travers also (“Quar. Jour. Geo. Soc.,” 
