392 Transactions. — Geology. 



7. As a last reason, Dr. Hector cites mj paper on tlie Lower Waikato 

 deposits, read before tlie Auckland Institute [Trans. N.Z. Inst., IIL, p. 244), 

 in wliieL I state that there is no evidence of the sea having ever been in the 

 Lower Waikato valley. This I certainly think shows that the Lower Waikato 

 district has not risen more than 50 feet during the pleistocene period, but it 

 does not affect other parts of the Island. Indeed, there can be no doubt 

 that the elevation has been very unequal in different districts. The central 

 portion of the North Island appears to have risen most, and next to that the 

 central portion of the South Island, while the whole of the northern portion of 

 the province of Auckland does not seem to have risen more than 20 or 30 

 feet, but we are almost without data at present to estimate these differences 

 correctly. 



I do not think, therefore, that the reasons brought forward by Dr. Hector 

 by any means prove that subsidence has been going on during the pleistocene 

 period, on the contrary I believe that nearly the whole of the evidence is in 

 favour of elevation. 



At Shakspeare Cliff, Wanganui, and at Patea, in the province of Welling- 

 ton, we iind marine strata containing fossils of which, about 24 per cent, are 

 extinct. These beds must be referred to the newer-pliocene period, and 

 this, therefore, cannot have been the time of elevation and extension of the 

 glaciers. 



The next set of beds, however, below these contain about 59 per cent, of 

 extinct species, thus proving that a long interval of time must have elapsed 

 between their deposition and the newer-pliocene period, which is quite 

 unrepresented in New Zealand by marine strata. I refer tliese lower beds, 

 which are found at the Awatere, the Port hills at Nelson, the White Cliffs of 

 Taranaki, Awamoa, etc. (see Geo. Reports, 1872, p. 183), to the upper-miocene 

 period ; and it is therefore the older-pliocene period that is unrepresented. 



But not only is there a great difference between the fossils of these two 

 formations, but there is also a great difference in their stratigraphical 

 position, and in the amount of sub-aerial denudation that they have respectively 

 undergone. The older formations always show a broken outline, deeply eroded 

 into hills and vallies, and in some places tlie beds are tilted at high angles ; 

 while where the newer-pliocene beds form the surface level plains cut by 

 narrow ravines only are found (Pharazyn, Trans. N.Z. Inst., IL, p. 158). 

 These facts are, I think, sufficient to prove that the older-pliocene period was 

 a period of upheaval, and it is therefore to this time that I refer the last great 

 extension of our ghxciers. If Dr. Hector's views are cori-ect as to the glacier 

 period having been in pleistocene times, we shall have to find some reason for 

 the newer-pliocene deposits not being more denuded than they are ; for, 

 according to this theory, they once stood at a much higher level than they 

 have at present. 



