434 Transactions. — Geology. 



to the climate of Switzerland, during the interval between these two glacier 

 periods, do not content themselves with bare assertions on i)oints of scientific 

 importance, and the learned Professor took care to point out that the character 

 of the fossil fauna and flora from the drift of the intervening period was such 

 as to support the a 2)riori conclusion deducible from a comparison between the 

 greater and the less extensive glaciation, that the climate was milder during 

 that intervening period than that of the periods which had preceded and 

 succeeded it. 



But Dr. Haast adduces no evidences of the several kinds I have pointed 

 out in support of his assertions, and simply, as I believe, because they do not 

 exist. No morainic accumulations are to be found on the Canterbury plains, 

 except at very short distances below the mouths of the greater valleys. No 

 boulder clays are to be found of the kind which would result from the action 

 of an ice sheet. Nowhere on Banks Peninsula are to be found the smallest 

 traces of glaciation. Nothing in the character of the pleistocene fauna or flora 

 indicates it. In fact, I may safely challenge Dr. Haast to produce the 

 slightest evidence, calculated to satisfy scientific men, in support of his 

 assertions. Tyndall tells us that " the scientific mind is fond of verification, 

 and never neglects it where it is possible." Dr. Haast prefers broad assump- 

 tion and bare assertion. I have no hesitation, however, in utterly rejecting 

 his propositions respecting the alleged glaciation, not only because they are 

 rash and unsupported, but also because they conflict with all the facts which 

 are thrust upon us (so to speak) by an examination of the existing physical 

 features of these islands. 



I might here have closed this paper, but I have thought it desirable not to 

 do so without referring to some remarks made by Dr. Hector during the short 

 discussion upon my paper of last year, and I do this more especially because 

 those which I am about to make in reply have also a strict bearing upon the 

 general subject under discussion. On that occasion Dr. Hector referred 

 to a letter written by himself to Dr. Hooker, in 1864 (which is quoted 

 approvingly by Sir Charles Lyell, at page 241 of the first volume of the 

 Piinciples of Geology, tenth edition), in which, if the quotation of Sir Charles 

 be correct, Dr. Hector appears to have stated in effect as follows: — "Dr. Hector 

 has remarked that the north-west winds, when they blow for several days in 

 succession from Australia to the South Island of New Zealand, are so hot and 

 dry as to cause great floods by the sudden melting of the snow on the 

 Northern Alps of that island. He observes that if Australia were submerged, 

 or if at some former period the sea covered a largo portion of the space now 

 occupied by that continent, the Now Zealand glaciers, which arc now of 

 considerable size, would have been more voluminous." 



Now, although Dr. Haast has frequently quoted Dr. Hector in a manner 



