Wellington Philosophical Society. 479 



summons to his aid the great leveller and engineer — the sea, with its never- 

 ceasing waves grinding the rocks into sand, and fashioning the boulders, and 

 assorting the materials brought to it, either by the glaciers themselves or by 

 the rivers flowing from the mountain ranges, and spreading them out in vast 

 plains. Everything seems to show that plains of any extent are the result of 

 the action of the ocean, or of vast inland seas. I do not question the 

 statement that terminal moraines attain great size, and form mounds of rough 

 angular fragments and debris — perhaps some hundreds of feet in height. 

 These are the wastes of the mountains. What I contend for is, that nowhere 

 is this confused debris scattered far and wide and levelled out into strata, 

 forming plains of great extent by the action of glaciers. Captain Hutton 

 admits that the glaciers of the South Island have been at some former time of 

 much larger dimensions than they are at present, and that there may have 

 been a glacial epoch in the southern hemisphere. But he does not admit 

 that such an epoch bears any relation to, or was contemporaneous with, that of 

 Europe. He would refer it, if it ever existed at all, to a period long 

 antecedent. At the same time he guards himself by stating that we have no 

 proof of a change of climate ; and, as he considers an elevation of the land of 

 about 3000 feet would be able by itself to account for a great extension of the 

 glacier system, there is no necessity of calling in the aid of any other cause. 



The existence of a glacial epoch must not be denied here. It is a settled 

 question among geologists that many of the changes on the earth's surface are 

 due to it. If I am not encroaching too much on your patience, I will explain 

 why I do not think we are justified in objecting to Dr. Haast's assumption of 

 a glacial epoch in the southern hemisphere on the ground that it is of a very 

 remarkable character, and as being supported by no evidence whatever; at 

 any rate he follows in the wake of great men. We find Professor Agassiz 

 startling the geological world by his strong opinion that a gigantic glacier 

 once filled the entire valley of the Amazon, and he invited the members of the 

 Alpine Club to go out and search for traces of glacial action on the mountains 

 of Ceana; and I see by a notice in "Science Gossip" that on his South 

 American Expedition he discovered evidences of glacial action on a scale so 

 extensive as to more than suggest that the southern hemisphere has under- 

 gone a similar general glaciation to that of the northern. The glaciation has 

 been traced as far as the northern end of Chiloe Island. The Professor 

 believes that during the glacial period the two hemispheres were capped with 

 a sheet of ice of enormous thickness. Ancient moraines abound in South 



Magellan one was found 



a valley. 



said 



that 



