392 Transactions.—.Geology. 
7. As a last reason, Dr. Hector cites my paper on the Lower Waikato 
deposits, read before the Auckland Institute (Trans: N.Z. Inst., IIL, p. 244), 
in which I state that there is no evidence of the sea having ever been in the 
Lower Waikato valley. This I certainly think shows that the Lower Waikato 
district has not risen more than 50 feet during the pleistocene period, but it 
does not affect other parts of the Island. Indeed, there can be no doubt 
that the elevation has been very unequal in different districts. The central 
portion of the North Island appears to have risen most, and next to that the 
central portion of the South Island, while the whole of the northern portion of 
the province of Auckland does not seem to have risen more than 20 or 30 
feet, but we are almost without data at present to estimate these differences 
correctly. 
I do not think, therefore, that the reasons brought forward by Dr. Hector 
by any means prove that subsidence has been going on during the pleistocene 
period, on the contrary I believe that nearly the whole of the evidence is in 
favour of elevation. 
At Shakspeare Cliff, Wanganui, and at Patea, in the province of Welling- 
ton, we find marine strata containing fossils of which about 24 per cent. are 
extinct. These beds must be referred to the newer-pliocene period, and 
this, therefore, cannot have been the time of elevation and extension of the 
glaciers, 
The next set of beds, however, below these contain about 59 per cent. of 
extinct species, thus proving that a long interval of time must have elapsed 
between their deposition and the newer-pliocene period, which is quite 
unrepresented in New Zealand by marine strata. I refer these lower beds, 
which are found at the Awatere, the Port hills at N elson, the White Cliffs of 
Taranaki, Awamoa, etc. (see Geo. Reports, 1872, p. 183), to the upper-miocene 
period ; and it is therefore the older-pliocene period that is unrepresented. 
But not only is there a great difference between the fossils of these two 
formations, but there is also a great difference in their stratigraphical 
position, and in the amount of sub-aerial denudation that they have respectively 
undergone. The older formations always show a broken outline, deeply eroded 
into hills and vallies, and in some places the beds are tilted at high angles ; 
while where the newer-pliocene beds form the surface level plains cut by 
narrow ravines only are found (Pharazyn, Trans. N.Z. Tust., TE; p. 158). 
These facts are, I think, sufficient to prove that the older-pliocene period was 
a period of upheaval, and it is therefore to this time that I refer the last great 
extension of our glaciers. If Dr. Hector’s views are correct as to the glacier 
period having been in pleistocene times, we shall have to find some reason for 
the newer-pliocene deposits not being more denuded than they are; for, 
they once stood at a much higher level than they 
