HuTTON. — On the Last Great Glacier Period in N.Z. 391 



3. That witli the exception of a raised beach, nowhere raised more than 

 20 feet above the sea level, " there is a total want of any inland cliffs, lines of 

 sand-dnnes, and ridges, and other familiar evidences of an emerged coast line." 

 I do not think that inland cliffs can by any means be called " familiar evidences 

 of an emerged coast line," because everywhere they are the exception and not 

 the rule. Nothing is so soon obliterated as an inland cliff, and few things are 

 rarer to find, except close to the sea j but I have already quoted Dr. Hector 

 himself as mentioning beach terraces on the west coast of the South Island 

 which attain a height of 220 feet above the sea ; and I have also mentioned 

 inland cliffs in Cook Strait, and near East Cape, both of which are certainly 

 more than 100 feet above the sea level. Mr. Traill also describes [Trans. N.Z. 

 Inst., II., p. 169) an old sea beach near Oamaru, "elevated considerably above 

 the present one." Mr. P. Thompson describes {Trans. N.Z. Inst, III., p. 263) 

 two series of sand-dunes at Wickliffe Bay, in Otago, one much older than the 

 other, and covered with grass ; and in his ''Catalogue of the Colonial Museum," 

 Dr. Hector classes the Upper Wanganui series as a raised beach. Mr. 

 Buchanan also gives a section (Geo. Reports, 1866-7, p. 36) showing pleis- 

 tocene gravels containing marine fossils at a considei'able elevation above the 

 Clarence River, in Marlborough. 



4. That " the low country is invariably formed of marine strata of higher 

 antiquity than the period of the extension of the glaciers." As Dr. Hector 

 supposes the extension of the glaciers to have taken place in pleistocene times 

 it is of course difficult to find any strata younger than this ; but even on his 

 view the pleistocene beds at Wanganui and Taranaki must be either younger 

 than, or of the same age as, his glacier period ; and if I am right in referring 

 the glacier period to older-pliocene times, we have the newer-pliocene beds of 

 Shakspeare Cliff and Patea, younger than the glacier period. 



5. That the Canterbury plains have been " overwhelmed by shingle deposits 

 brought from a higher level by the rivers," and have an old drift-wood bed 

 below them at 80 to 90 feet below the level of the sea. This point I have 

 already discussed, and shown, I think, that as yet it is far from certain that 

 these plains have been formed altogether by the rivers. The drift-wood bed 

 simply proves oscillation of level, and it was probably formed during the sub- 

 sidence that took place in newer-pliocene times, and is perhaps older than the 

 lower Wanganui beds of Shakspeare Cliff. 



6. That there is no pumice drift at high altitudes in land-locked harbours 

 like Wellington, although it is found at low levels. On this I would remark, 

 that the seaward slopes round all these harbours are very steep, and that 

 pumice is very light, and easily washed away. It also very rapidly decays 

 when kept wet, much of that which comes down the Waikato being half rotten 

 already. These causes are, I think, sufiScient to account for the disappearance 

 of pumice in the course of time. 



