422 Transactions. — Geology. 



But, singular and contradictory as this may appear, it would seem that 

 Dr. Haast's recent repudiation of any elevation of the land in pleistocene 

 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 naiTOW arm of the sea, 

 which ran along 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 pai-a- 

 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 Waslidyke Creek to the north. 



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

 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 



sudden curves in the rivers (which shift their channels with ahnost every heavy fresli) 

 these terraces are often destroyed, and beautiful vertical sections are exposed, sho-wing 

 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 sloping 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 

 boulder-clays of Europe. These beds are generally quite horizontal, but are sometimes 

 irregularly disturbed, as if tilted up by the stranding of an iceberg. In the shingle- 

 clays" (the italics are mine)," xohich sometimes thin out in a distance of f fly or sixty yards 

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

 sJiells, but so rotten that it teas not only impossible to remove them, but even to ascertain tite 

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



He further says : — "During a careful examination of the boulders forming these 

 deposits, I was not able to detect any eruptive or volcanic rocks or debris of the tertiary 

 deposits at the l^ase of the latter, but only the different sandstones, slates, fiagstones, 

 pebble beds, and conglomerates which form the Southern Alps ; whilst the rivers fiowing 

 through these zones now bring down a great quantity of volcanic detritus, from which we 

 may conclude" (the italics again are mine) " tluit when these deposits of the glacial period 

 vwre formed, the volcanic mountains (never more than 5000 feet, and generally 3000 to 3550 

 feet h'lgh) were lying below the level of the sea.^' 



W. T. L. Travers. 



18th February, 1875. 



