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water, might also have been styled a river, in so far as the characteristics of 

 its watershed or valley are concerned ; these upper terraces are conspicuous 

 here, and I believe many other creeks exist having the same distinct features. 

 The heights of the different ranges of the hills (and mountains as we style 

 their highest peaks) forming these watersheds, of course vary, and their sides 

 are also irregular, presenting many precipices almost perpendicular, and slopes 

 of not very acute angles, showing, in fact, so much unevenness and so many 

 fissures, that I will rather leave you to imagine than attempt to describe them, 

 bearing in mind that in places such as at the Remarkables and Mount Aurum, 

 the schist rock has been pushed up to elevations of some 6000 feet. The appear- 

 ance to me was as though, when being thus forced up from beloAV to its highest 

 peaks, the strata, from insufficient strength, became broken, and the sides of what 

 would have been an even plane from base to summit were shattered, presenting an 

 appeai'auce very like waves of the sea when driven before a gale, or the teeth 

 of a common hand-saw ; the sides of the sections nearest the points of upheaval 

 being precipitous in the extreme, and the others presenting a more gradual 

 slope. It will readily be conceived that many thousands of streams exist 

 in a chain of such mountains, the accumulated power of which must be very 

 great. It may also be conceded that these converge towards a few points as they 

 discharge themselves into the sea in the shape of livers. The ages of these 

 rivers have, by clever and experienced men, been read, or it has been attempted 

 at least, and definite periods assigned to their existence. Assuming that a 

 a river, in cutting the rock, leaves its distinctive mai'k, what age shall we give 

 to the Shotover, when we find that it has cut through the hard slate rock to 

 the extent of about 200 feet 1 This same feature is also very plainly shown 

 where the Arrow joins the Kawarau, and where both these rivers appear to 

 have cut, perpendicularly, fully the same depth through a hard metamorphosed 

 slate rock. The level of the Wakatij)u Lake is 1000 feet above the sea ; 

 Cromwell, about 800 feet ; Duustan, about 600 feet ; Teviot, about 400 feet ; 

 the Beaumont, about 150 feet. 



Having now travelled to nearly the highest ground in the pi'ovince, I have 

 to make a hurried sketch of the country over which we have passed, skimming as 

 it were in my return journey, over the tops of the hills and ranges, along the 

 bases of which we have so far progressed ; their heights vary from 7000 feet 

 at Mount Aurum, to about 700 feet at the Coast Ranges. Mount Aurum, the 

 ranges on either side of Skipper's Gully, and down the Shotover-, till arriving 

 at the Wakatipu Lake, present well-defined peaks, and the view from Queens- 

 town embraces many such features ; the Remarkable Peak affording a notable 

 specimen. Another feature, however, is also here abundant. Hills and 

 ranges of considerable elevation, say 1500 or 2000 feet, no longer retain those 

 peaked or sharp featured characteristics, but are rounded off, and the sides 

 ground down, smoothed and striated. This new feature I attribute to the 



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