W. Travers. — Supposed Pleistocene Glaciatlon of New Zealand. 421 



on the contrary, from the nature of these silt beds and their partial denuda- 

 tion, we might conclude that the peninsula has undergone a depression since 

 they were deposited. Had a rise of the ground taken place, by which the 

 Canterbury plains had emerged from the sea, we certainly would find the 

 proof of it along the slopes of the peninsula, in the form of raised beaches, 

 deposits of sea shingle, and sand with recent marine shells, but nowhere is a 

 trace of such easily recognisable beds to be found, and thus, even assuming 

 that the clear and undeniable data which the Canterbury plains present as to 

 their origin were not in existence, the character of the silt deposits on the 

 slopes of Banks Peninsula, and the absence of recent marine beds, would at 

 once compel us to reject Captain Hutton's new theory as incorrect in all the 



issues." 



In view of the statements contained and the theory propounded in the 

 report of 1864, all this is very incomprehensible, for if no elevation has taken 

 place, even since the period when the configuration of the area now " occupied 

 by the Canterbury plains was a broad arm or channel of the sea," I would ask 

 the learned doctor to account for the astonishing fact, asserted by himself, 

 that the higher parts of the foundations upon which the surface materials of 

 these plains are deposited, " consisting," to use his own words, " of palaeozoic, 

 volcanic, and tertiary rocks, which, prior to the postpliocene elevation of the 

 land, composed the former sea bottom," happen now to be exposed at the 

 debouchures of the great rivers which traverse the plains, at an elevation 

 varying from 800 to 1000 feet above the level of the sea, towards which the 

 superimposed materials slope " with an almost uniform gradient"?* 



* Since the foregoing paper was read, my attention has been called to the following 

 passages, the first in Dr. Haast's recent address, and the second in a report on the 

 geology of the Canterbury plains, presented by him to the Superintendent of Canterbury 

 in 1862 :— 



Hx tract fro m A d dress. 



"But a still more formidable objection to Captain Hutton's hypothesis presents 

 itself : If the Canterbury plains were of marine origin, the beds of which they are com- 

 posed would have preserved some traces of it ; but, although we have clear sections, 

 several hundred feet high, in almost every river, their fluviatile character is unmistakable . 

 The boulders, shingle, gravel, sand, and ooze are all deposited as a river torrent would 

 place them, according to their form and size, and according to the greater or less amount 

 of water being brought down. The peculiar character of surf shingle is nowhere 

 exhibited, but all the pieces of stone have the subangular form so peculiar to river 

 shingle. Marine fossils are missing throughout." 



After referring to the circumstance that, at the foot of the Urunui Mountains 

 forming the Southern Alps, large deposits of boulders would necessarily occur, he says : 

 — "The Canterbury plains, formed by these deposits, are 112 miles long and on an 

 average 24 miles broad, and consist for some miles inland, along the coast line, of 

 alluvium brought down by the rivers which intersect these plains, and which, for about 

 ten miles from their mouths, flow above the present level of the plains, resembling in 

 this respect the Adige and the Po. 



1 ' About nine or ten miles from the mouths of the rivers a change occurs, and, 

 although the beds of the glacial streams are still broad, they begin to cut into the loose 

 deposits of the plains. Terraces are formed, which, on the eastern side of the plains, 

 near the base of the mountains, are often 300 feet above the level of the rivers, and 

 consist of from four to six distinct and perfect terraces rising one above the other. At 



