W. Travers. — Supposed Pleistocene Glaciation of New Zealand. 417 



frosted silver, and stretching away far as eye could reach into the illimitable 

 distance. The ice cliff described by Ross is the terminal front of a gigantic 

 mer de glace, which, nurtured on the circumpolar continent, creeps outward 

 over the floor of the sea until it reaches depths where the pressure of the 

 water stops its further advance by continually breaking off large segments and 

 shreds from its terminal front, and floating these away as icebergs." 



Mr. Darwin, speaking of islands far to the north of the South Polar 

 continent, tells us (at page 248, tenth thousand of the Naturalist's Voyage), 

 that, " considering the rankness of the vegetation in Terra del Fuego, and on 

 the coast northward of it, the conditions of the islands south and south-west of 

 America is truly surprising. Sandwich land, in the latitude of the north 

 part of Scotland, was found by Cook, during the hottest month of the year, 

 covered many fathoms thick with everlasting snow, and there seems to be 

 scarcely any vegetation. Georgia, an island ninety-six miles long and ten 

 broad, in the latitude of Yorkshire, in the very height of summer is in a 

 manner wholly covered with frozen snow. It can boast only of moss, some 

 tufts of grass, and wild burnet ; it has only one land bird, yet Iceland, which 

 is 10° nearer the pole, has, according to Mackenzie, fifteen land birds. The 

 South Shetland Islands, in the same latitude as the northern half of Norway, 

 possess only some lichens, moss, and a little grass ; and Lieutenant Kendall 

 found the bay in which he was at anchor beginning to freeze at a period 

 corresponding with our 8th of September. The soil here consists of ice and 

 volcanic ashes interstratified ; and at a little depth beneath the surface it 



perpetu 



been 



perfectly preserved." 



I am not in a position to quote any condensed description of the inner 

 Thibetan glacier regions as they at present exist, nor am I prepared to offer 

 any description of them of my own construction, not having Mr. Godwin 

 Austen's work before me ; but, so far as I can recollect, a description of those 

 regions would not materially differ, as regards the glaciated aspect of the 

 country, from those which I have already extracted in relation to Greenland 

 and the antarctic lands, and it would certainly be less applicable than they are, 

 to the glaciated aspect of an island in which the ice sheet was bounded only 

 by the waters of the sea. 



Now, it will at once be seen that, if the statements made and the picture 

 drawn by Dr. Haast respecting the glacial condition of New Zealand in 

 pleistocene times be founded in truth, the deposit and accumulation of snow, 

 and the formation of glaciers upon the newly -emerged land of the South 



risen 



level. That this is, in effect, Dr. Haast's own conception is shown 



E2 



