422 - Transactions. — Geology. 



iliis 



in 



times is not new, as may be inferred from the following passage, which occurs 

 at page 22 of the report in question : — " During the greatest depression of the 

 island in the post-tertiary era, there was doubtless a narrow arm of the sea, 



the western foot of Banks Peninsula, and of which we have 

 ample evidence in raised beaches near it." But the doctor limits the extreme 

 height of these raised beaches to twenty feet above sea level. Now, although the 

 utter discrepancy between the statements contained in the last quoted para- 

 graph and those which occur in the passages which profess to give the " causes" 

 of the alleged glaciation would almost justify us in treating the whole of 

 Dr. Haast's propositions as untenable, I think it as well to show, partly 

 by reference to his own writings on other occasions, and partly by independent 

 facts, how utterly unfounded it is under any system of interpretation which 

 can be adopted. In 1865, the year after the date of the report from which 

 I have already quoted, Dr. Haast reported to the Provincial Government of 

 Canterbury on the structure of the Timaru district, with special reference to 

 the probability of obtaining a supply of water in that locality by means of 

 artesian wells. In this report he says : 



-"The town of Timaru is situated on the eastern end of a dolerite plateau, 

 which stretches from Mount Horrible, * * for ten miles to the sea, with 

 a breadth of about six miles, between the northern bank of Pig-hunting Creek 

 to the south, and the Washdyke Creek to the north. 



" The existence of this dolerite sheet is the cause of the configuration of 



o 



the Timaru roadstead, and of the preservation of the loose pleistocene strata 

 lying upon the volcanic rocks, which otherwise, like similar strata to the north 

 and south of Timaru, would probably have been destroyed by the great 



buuuen curves in tne rivers (which shiit their channels with almost every heavy fresh) 

 these terraces are often destroyed, and beautiful vertical sections are exposed, showing 

 clearly the nature of the deposits by which they have been formed. There is, in the 

 first place, generally a capping of well-stratified shingle and sand doping insensibly to 

 the sea ; below this we find different beds of boulders, for the greater part rounded, but 

 sometimes angular, interstratified with sand, loam, and clay, exactly resembling the 

 .- ™ ld * r "^ lay , s . ° f Europe. . Th?se beds are generally quite horizontal, but are sometimes 



stranding of an iceberg. In the shingle- 



irr _ o 



clays iiue italics are mine), " which sometimes 



from three to four feet to a few inches, I observed the remains of someexuvke and bivalve 

 shells but so rotten that it was not only impossible to remove them, but even to ascertain tU 

 species although I believed one of them to resemble the Venus intermedia of our seas." 

 J«ii TiT . D ? r i ng a careful exami ™ti°n of the boulders forming these 



S^'i^ 8 T f £ d< W an ? eru P tive or voI <*nic rocks or debris of the tertiary 

 tllul VL f i °f the J atte l'- b\ 0nly the different sandstones, slates, flagstones, 

 t n^an^'J"" 1 con S lom f atea 7hich form the Southern Alps ; whilst the rivers flowing 

 SIS ^ -f n r W brmg d0Wn a - «*** <l uantit y of volcanic detritus, from which we 

 wZ ZSrf ti the , ltall . c8 a § ain ?«> mine) " that when these deposits of the glacial period 



f7Jl-n!T ' i -'^T/ C moun 7 ta T i™™ ^re than 5000 feet, and generally 3000 to 3550 

 Jttt h>gh) were lying below the level of the sea." 



February 



W. T. L. Tkaveks. 



