Hurron.—On the Last Great Glacier Period in N.Z. 391 
3. That with the exception of a raised beach, nowhere raised more than 
20 feet above the sea level, “there is a total want of any inland cliffs, lines of 
sand-dunes, and ridges, and other familiar evidences of an emerged coast line.” 
I do not think that inland cliffs can by any means be called “ familiar evidences 
of an emerged coast line,” because everywhere they are the exception and not 
the rule. Nothing is so soon obliterated as an inland cliff, and few things are 
rarer to find, except close to the sea; but I have already quoted Dr. Hector 
himself as mentioning beach terraces on the west coast of the South Island 
which attain a height of 220 feet above the sea; and I have also mentioned 
inland cliffs in Cook Strait, and near East Cape, both of which are certainly 
more than 100 feet above the sea level. Mr. Traill also describes (Trans. N.Z. 
Inst., II., p. 169) an old sea beach near Oamaru, “elevated considerably above 
the present one.” Mr. P. Thompson describes (Zrans. N.Z. Inst., IIL, p. 263) 
two series of sand-dunes at Wickliffe Bay, in Otago, one much older than the 
other, and covered with grass ; and in his “Catalogue of the Colonial Museum,” 
Dr. Hector classes the Upper Wanganui series as a raised beach. Mr. 
Buchanan also gives a section (Geo. Reports, 1866-7, p. 36) showing pleis- 
tocene gravels containing marine fossils at a considerable elevation above the 
Clarence River, in Marlborough. 
4, That “the low country is invariably formed of marine strata of higher 
antiquity than the period of the extension of the glaciers.” As Dr. Hector 
supposes the extension of the glaciers to have taken place in pleistocene times 
it is of course difficult to find any strata younger than this; but even on his 
view the pleistocene beds at Wanganui and Taranaki must be either younger 
than, or of the same age as, his glacier period ; and if I am right in referring 
the glacier period to older-pliocene times, we have the newer-pliocene beds of 
Shakspeare Cliff and Patea, younger than the glacier period. 
5. That the Canterbury plains have been ‘ overwhelmed by shingle deposits 
brought from a higher level by the rivers,” and have an old drift-wood bed 
below them at 80 to 90 feet below the level of the sea. This point I have 
already discussed, and shown, I think, that as yet it is far from certain that 
these plains have been formed altogether by the rivers. The drift-wood bed 
simply proves oscillation of level, and it was probably formed during the sub- 
sidence that took place in newer-pliocene times, and is perhaps older than the 
lower Wanganui beds of Shakspeare Cliff. 
6. That there is no pumice drift at high altitudes in land-locked harbours 
like Wellington, although it is found at low levels. On this I would remark, 
that the seaward slopes round all these harbours are very steep, and that 
pumice is very light, and easily washed away. It also very rapidly decays 
when kept wet, much of that which comes down the Waikato being half rotten 
already. These causes are, I think, sufficient to account for the disappearance 
of pumice in the course of time. 
