440 Transactio7is. — Geology. 



difficult to convey a clear idea of these views withont the aid of diagrams, but 

 an examination of the wind and ocean current charts of the southern 

 hemisphere will, I think, show that they are consistent with received opinions. 

 Our President also leads us to believe that he inclines to Dr. Haast's views as 

 to the glaciation of these Islands in pleistocene times, which, however, he 

 refei'S to cosmical causes in no degree hinted at by Dr. Haast in the paper 

 I have criticised, and at the same time appears indisposed to acquiesce in the 

 assumption of a greater elevation of these islands during pliocene times. 

 But it appears to me that our learned President, in dealing with the latter 

 question, has entirely overlooked the evidence afforded by the organic life of 

 the group of islands curving round the eastern side of New Zealand, from 

 Sunday Island in the north, by the Chatham group to the Antipodes, the 

 specific identity of which with that of New Zealand, can, as I conceive, only 

 be accounted for by assuming a former land connection between them, severed 

 by a subsidence which took place since miocene times. 



Art. LXIX. — On the Bate of the Glacial Period ; a Comparison of Views 

 represented in Papers published in the Transactions of the N.Z. Institute, 

 Vols. V. and VI. By A. Dudley Dobson, C.E. 



[Bead before the Nelson Association, 5th April, 1875.] 



The last issued volume of the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute 

 contains several papers on the Glacial Period of New Zealand, which are 

 exceedingly interesting, not only from the descriptions given of geological 

 and geographical phenomena, but also from the different conclusions arrived 

 at by the several writers. I have ventured to think it would be interesting 

 to others as well as myself to see the different views placed side by side, with 

 the object of ascertaining in what they agree, and in what differ ; and although 

 Dr. Hector, in his annual address to the Wellington Philosojihical Society, 

 very truly remarks, " that much has still to be done before any decision on 

 this point (date of glacial period) can be arrived at," I am of opinion that an 

 examination of the various arguments as at present advanced will greatly assist 

 in clearing the way, and may, perhaps, put observers upon their guard against 

 fallacious theories. But very few observers are capable of simply recording 

 observations without having some theory on which to adjust them j it there- 

 fore becomes the more necessary to examine carefully into every hypothesis, 

 and reject all which are palpably untenable, holding temporarily to the one 

 which seems to explain best the records of bygone times which everywhere 

 surround us. 



In volume V. of the Transactions we find an interesting paper on the Date 



