158 Transactions. — Geology. 



" Below the lake the alluvial land between it and the sea is about one 

 and a half miles wide, heavily timbered and abounding with bird life, — 

 wekas are especially abundant ; scarcely less so are pigeons, kakas, kiwis, 

 kakapos, and roas. Kedbills and penguins are in great numbers on the 

 shingle bar between the two parts of the lake when the tide is out, and as 

 far as birds and fish supply it, there is no scarcity of the means of living. 



" The characters of the rocks here resemble more that variety of granite 

 found in the Cleddau Eiver, at the head of Milford Sound, than the other 

 localities of which the rocks have been noticed. There is yet a greater 

 number of varieties than in the Cleddau river-bed ; but in all these there 

 is still a resemblance." 



Such is Mr. Sutherland's narrative, and I take it for granted that it is 

 sufficiently interesting and important to merit being read here ; and from 

 this it may be inferred that besides the larger sounds excavated to such a 

 depth that they are now deep arms of the sea extending far inland from 

 the coast-line, there was a second series of sounds the glaciers that 

 excavated which were connected with less extensive snow--fields, — the 

 great glacier of Milford Sound (a branch of which filled the valley of the 

 Arthur Eiver) dividing these from the greater snow-fields of the Darran 

 Mountains and their southern continuation ; they thus were unable to 

 excavate their beds to the same level. 



Some of these as we see are now filled and form level lands fit for 

 settlement, while in the case of the Salt-water Lake inland from Little Bay, 

 this is yet a sound to all intents and purposes, owing its greater depth 

 and length to the fact that there is here between the watershed to the Arthur 

 Eiver and the coast-line a greater breadth and a greater elevation of the 

 country than further to the north, south of Milford Sound, and west of the 

 Arthur Eiver. 



The glacier excavating this sound must have been fed from the Balloon 

 Mountains, and is an evidence of the correctness of Mr. Sutherland's esti- 

 mate, that these are higher than the mountains immediately south of 

 Milford Sound. 



This lake at Little Bay is not the only example of the kind on the 

 west coast of Otago. Lake McKerrow, in the lower part of the Hollyford 

 Valley and its tidal river, presents the same phenomenon on a much larger 

 scale. That, however, belongs to the valleys of the larger glaciers reaching 

 back to the Darran Mountains, while this has been excavated by the glaciers 

 of the coast ranges. 



The distances, as estimated by Mr. Sutherland, may not be in all cases 

 correct, the difficulties of travelling in such a country leading to an over- 

 estimate of these. 



