HuTTOX. — On the Last Great Glacier Period in N.Z. 389 



emergence above tlie sea-level, by the ready percolation of rain-water contain- 

 ing carbonic acid through such porous strata. 



Dr. Haast also describes at Timaru (Report on Timaru district, p. 4) silt, 

 underlaid in places by fine clay or gravel, covering basalt, and sloping up from 

 the sea to a height of 686 feet, and containing recent marine shells near the 

 sea (Cant. Plains, p. 8). 



Mr. Hacket gives evidence (Geo. Reports, 1868-69, pp. 10 and 11) of a rise 

 of the land near the Okarita and Waikukupa Rivers, on the west coast of the 

 South Island. It is evident that the deposits he here describes are not ordinary 

 morainic accumulations, but it remains yet to be proved whether these beds 

 were deposited in a lake or in the sea, or whether they are of morainic origin 

 at all. 



Dr. Hector, in describing the gold fields of the west coast of the South 

 Island (Progress Report, 1866-67, p. 29), says that the gold drifts have been 

 " carried out from the mountains by tlie rivers, and deposited upon a gi'adually 

 changing coast line. They thus have a general distribution parallel to what 

 was the western shore of the island at the epoch of their deposit j and by 

 tracing the successive lines of elevation, and allowing for the consequent 

 changes which have occurred in the direction of the drainage channels of the 

 country, we are enabled to form an opinion as to the extent and position of 

 the auriferous leads." Further on he speaks of the first group of auriferous 

 alluviums as being the " earliest formed and most elevated of these drifts," but 

 he does not give the height to which it attains ; but the third group he calls 

 "beach terraces which extend to an altitude of 220 feet, and mark several 

 changes in the level of the shore line within a comparatively recent geological 

 period," so that we must infer that the first group attains a greater height 

 than 220 feet. 



At Taranaki, Dr. Hector also describes (Progress Report, 1866—7, p. 3), 

 " pleistocene deposits consisting of stratified gravels and sand-rock, with beds 

 of lignite," reaching an altitude of 150 feet above the sea, which he says 

 " must be regarded as in some way connected with an ancient coast line, and 

 from the circumstance that at the base of this formation in many places, and 

 underneath the lignite seams, there is a layer of rolled broken shells of existing 

 species, we may infer that these gravels have been deposited in lagoons parallel 

 with the coast line during a gradual elevation of the land, and that they have 

 been overtaken, as it were, by the encroachment of the sea, and exposed in the 

 sea clififs after they are 80 to 100 feet above the present level of the tide." 



Mr. R. Pharazyn, in a paper read to this Society [Trans. N.Z. Inst., II., 

 p. 158), gives evidence of recent elevation near Wanganui ; and Dr. Haast 

 (Report on the Cant. Plains, p. 8) at Timaru. 



In the Nelson province Mr. W. T. L. Travers also ("Quar. Jour. Geo. Soc," 



