426 Transactions. — Geology. 



I have been obliged to extract somewhat at length from this paper, but it 

 will be observed that the whole extract bears materially upon the questions at 

 issue. If I read it rightly, the following conclusions appear to be fairly 

 deducible from his language : — 



1. It being stated that the upper ca2:>ping of dolerite on Mount Horrible is 

 1138 feet above sea level, and that it was deposited upon a sea bottom 

 composed of "younger pliocene strata," it is evident that the rise in the land 

 at this point, since this dolerite sheet was deposited, must have exceeded 

 1138 feet. 



2. That looking to the alleged steepness of this dolerite sheet below the 

 summit of Mount Horrible, and to the fact that the entii-e surface must have 

 continued for a very long period as bare rock, exposed to the full swing of 

 the Pacific Ocean, the conditions it ofiered were most unfavourable to its 

 colonization by a marine fauna, except such as could resist the impact of the 

 Pacific waves, and that, therefore, it is in no degree surprising that the "silt " 

 which is described by Dr. Haast as covering this sheet in diminishing 

 thickness from the foot of Mount Horrible to the present sea cliffs should 

 not contain ordinary littoral remains. 



3. That as the "silt" which covers this dolerite sheet, and which is spoken 

 of by Dr. Haast as of pleistocene age, is found to have filled up all the 

 hollows and depressions in it (as seen especially in the cliffs near the present 

 sea shore), often to a depth exceeding fifty feet, and to extend back in 

 diminishing thickness to the foot of Mount Horrible, this silt, as well as that 

 on Banks Peninsula, which Dr. Haast calls "a slope deposit," must be 

 considered as having been deposited in standing water, notwithstanding the 

 alleged absence of shells. It must be borne in mind that the mere absence of 

 fossUs is not sufficient to prove the purely terrestrial origin of such a deposit. 

 The physical evidence must not be ignored, and when that evidence is 

 clearly irreconcilable with any supposition other than that the deposit in 

 question took place below the surface of standing water, the negative evidence 

 afforded by the absence of traces of aqueous life, even in situations otherwise 

 favourable to its existence and preservation, must be rejected. 



The silt spoken of by Dr. Haast as occurring at Timaru and at Lyttelton 

 presents, in both situations, distinct traces of stratification. At Lyttelton it 

 attains, in many places, a thickness of upwards of 100 feet close to the level of 

 the waters of the harbour, the bed of which is composed of precisely the same 

 material. At the immediate shore line this silt exhibits, wherever it has been 

 exposed to wave action, nearly perpendicular cliffs, resting on exposed lava 

 beds ; that portion of the silt which formerly completed the slope from the top 

 of the cliff to the bed of the harbour having been removed by the waves. In 

 sheltered situations the slope is still continuous, but the upraised portions show 



