Crawford. — On the great Cook Strait River. 451 



slight, is from the westward to the eastward. It is hardly possible that this 

 could be the case had not the land to the westward formerly stood higher than 

 that to the eastward. Therefore, although the land in the vicinity of Wel- 

 lington was much higher than at present, that to the westward was higher 

 still. 



Having thus, I trust, proved the existence of a former Cook Strait Kiver, 

 I am tempted, in tracing the outlet of the fresh-water lake of Port Nicholson 

 — to which we may perhaps give the Maori name of the harbour, viz., 

 Whanganuiatera — to picture the magnificent fall over which the waters of the 

 outlet rushed before joining the main river. This fall was probably at no 

 great distance from Lyall Bay, although, as the trend of the outlet may have 

 been to the eastward until perhaps it was joined by the Ruamahunga, besides 

 smaller streams, and taking a more gradual slope to its final goal it may have 

 avoided violent action, the question of the waterfall may be considered specu- 

 lative and involved in some doubt, as although the fall to the main river must 

 have been considerable, it may have been sloped off in a series of rapids by the 

 course of the river trending to the eastward. 



We have in this province, and at the present day, an illustration of the 

 possible opening of a strait by the action of a river. The Manawatu, rising in 

 the Forty-Mile Bush, on the eastern side of the main range, breaks through 

 that range at the Gorge, and has cut for itself a channel which does not now 

 stand at much above 400 feet from high-water mark. Consequently a depres- 

 sion of the district to the extent of 500 feet would enable the waters of the 

 ocean to pass through the Gorge into the Forty-Mile Bush, and a little more 

 depression would bring these waters into the valleys of the Wairarapa and 

 Whareama, thus forming a channel with two branches, and converting the 

 peninsula of Wellington Province into two islands. I suppose the water would, 

 at the same time, pass northward through the Buataniwha plains to Napier, 

 and insulate the southern part of the Province of Hawke Bay. 



It appears to me, also, that the present configuration of the sea bottom 

 would probably involve the former existence of a large lake or lakes in that 

 part of Cook Strait lying to the westward, through which lakes the great river 

 flowed. I think I have shown that there was every reason to suppose that 

 formerly a great river flowed through Cook Strait, and that its course was 

 towards the east. 



Some further Proofs as to the ancient Cook Strait River, and the Harbour 

 of Wellington as a Fresh-water Lake ; also, a Consideration of the Date 

 at which the Islands were united. 

 [Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 10th February, 1875;] 

 On reading my papers on the above subjects at the meetings of the Wel- 

 lington Philosophical Society during the last two years, I was asked for my 



