W. Travers. — Supposed Pleistocene Glaciation of New Zealand, 431 



to some explanation of the manner in which they ultimately shook off their 

 dreary clothing, and assumed, in lieu thereof, their present rich and varied 

 garb, and how they became inhabited by the moa and the kiwi, and by other 

 creatures whose powers of crossing the 1200 miles of ocean which intervene 

 between New Zealand and the nearest continental land, even if they had 

 originated there, are of the very weakest. Perhaps, indeed, the learned doctor 

 believes that our present fauna was evolved " in those pleistocene times" out of 

 the moral consciousness of some mollusc or crustacean resting and pondering, 

 after the long winter, on the shores of the pleistocene sea ; or, perhaps, all this 

 dreadful submergence and glaciation may have been confined to the area of the 

 present Province of Canterbury, as a fitting preparation (in the eyes of 

 Dr. Haast) for the formation of the celebrated Canterbury plains, leaving the 

 rest of New Zealand to pursue the even tenour of ordinary geological ways. 



But I will ask Dr. Haast, whether he has at all considered the effects 

 which the grinding action of such an ice sheet as that in which he has chosen 

 to envelope New Zealand " in those pleistocene times" would produce upon its 

 surface? Has he speculated, beyond the conjectured " desolate aspect," upon 

 the appearances which the surface would present when, in the fullness of time, 

 the ice sheet had been removed 1 Can he, for example, point to the existence, 

 in any part of New Zealand, of boulder clays of the class constituting the 

 upper glacial series, as exhibited in the north of England and in many parts of 

 Scotland, and which Mr. "Wood has given good reasons for believing to be 

 composed of matter formed underneath a great ice sheet analogous to that of 

 Greenland, and gradually extruded upon the floor of the sea ? So far as I can 

 judge, in no part of the South Island, at all events north of the Waitaki 

 River, can the morainic matter that occupies the great mountain valleys be 

 referred to the action of such an ice sheet. The terminal moraines, even when 

 of largest dimensions, are restricted to these valleys, in some instances no 

 doubt extending to short distances beyond them, but in most cases confined to 

 their upper reaches. 



Let us see how Mr. Geikie sums up the work produced by the ice sheet 

 which enveloped the Highlands of Scotland in that part of the "great ice age" 

 during which the Lowlands were submerged. At page 252 of the work already 

 quoted from, he says : — " When the great ice sheet was beginning to deposit 

 the boulder clay which is now met with in the maritime districts, the higher 

 hills of the central Lowlands stood above the level of the mer de glace, like 

 islands in a frozen ocean. At the same time the mountain ridges of the High- 

 lands and the bold hills of the southern uplands rose up so as to separate the 

 ice sheet into a series of gigantic local glaciers, which, however, still coalesced 

 to form one mighty stream upon the Lowlands. Frost shivered the rocks and 

 loosened out great blocks, which eventually toppled down upon the ice below 



