Wellington Philosophical Society. 429 



The President stated that the defect of the Taupo pumice soil as a pasture 

 land is more a mechanical than a chemical one, and the thorough consolidation 

 of the surface by the trampling of stock would greatly improve it. 



Mr. Travers said with reference to a statement that horses in the district 

 feed on cotton-grass in absence of more nutritious food,. that even where grass 

 is abundant horses prefer that plant and eat it greedily. 



The President pointed out, with respect to the author's statement that the 

 occurrence of the pohutukawa and other littoral plants on the shores of Lake 

 Tarawera affords direct evidence of the former incursion of the sea into the 

 interior, that the fact of the plants thriving in inland positions proves that 

 they are not exclusively maritime, and is therefore of no value as evidence on 

 this point. 



3. "On the Date of the Last Great Glacier Period in New Zealand, and 

 the Formation of Lake Wakatipu," by Capt. F. W. Hutton, F.G.S. (See 

 Transactions, p. 384.) 



Mr. Travers explained that it was a mistake to quote hira as saying that 

 the glaciers are now over-riding their terminal moraines. He had mentioned 

 to Capt. Hutton that he found signs of this having occurred at some former 

 time in the Nelson mountains, but the glaciers had now entirely disappeared 

 from that district. 



Mr. J. D. Enys considered that the author must have misunderstood the 

 reports he quoted relative to the Canterbury plains. The fan-like shape of the 

 surface, formed by deposits radiating from the gorges of the large rivers, had 

 been clearly proved by levelling, and was shown in the sections referred to. 



The President while appreciating the value of the paper as likely to 

 maintain an interest in the subject, could not agree with the conclusions 

 arrived at further than attributing, as he had always done, the erosion of the 

 alpine vallies and the rock-bound lake basins to the scooping of ice. The 

 level at which the water of the sea or lakes now stands in these valleys is, 

 however, quite a different question. He admitted that the former extension 

 of the glaciers may have been greatest in the older-pliocene, and have 

 continued through the pleistocene period, and that he was perhaps wrong in 

 the manner in which he employed the latter term, as it is now frequently used 

 for post-pliocene, and all but the most recent formations. That the area of the 

 mountain tops above the snow line influenced the extension of the glaciers, 

 irrespective of the geological epoch, is proved by the fact that the glaciers 

 from Mount Cook at the present time descend to within 700 feet of the sea 

 level. 



The Wakitipu Lake, he explained, occupies portions of two parallel 

 vallies, connected by the middle arm, which intersects the backbone range of 

 the district by a gorge, the sides of which are 6,000 feet above the bottom of 



