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we have seen so well represented by our New Zealand artist, Mr. Gully, in his 

 delineations of Mount Cook. The whole iipper country is there represented as 

 clothed with snow ; and perhaps some of those present will i-emember its 

 description by Drs. Hector and Haast, in the course of their exjjlorations. 

 T make these appeals to our own districts and residents, in order that, if 

 possible, we may all realize the subject as of common and everyday interest. 

 We will suppose that at; some considerable height, on a range forming part of 

 the watershed of a valley, we are travelling on this snow at night, when in 

 the absence of the sun for some hours in such a bleak region, this may be done 

 in safety : the crust of the snow will be of sufficient hardness to bear us, and 

 but for the unevenness of the surface our journey might be performed in 

 compai'ative comfort. As the day breaks, however, a change takes place : the 

 snow, before crisp, will no longer bear otir weight, a partial thaw setting in 

 with the heat of the sun, we should sink in some places a few inches, in others 

 one or two feet, and where the wind in drifting the snow would have almost 

 bared high peaks and points of the rocks, the sun would melt the snow, and 

 running water would be visible ; the intense cold, however, of many feet of 

 snow a few yards down the sides of the valleys would soon re-absorb the water, 

 and the whole be turned to ice. Acciimulations of snow would be made with 

 the changes of the seasons, and these, in summer, would become partly rotten, 

 or not of the solidity they were when first deposited, producing avalanches, 

 wdiich, in falling down, would of course, to a partial extent, displace small and 

 large pieces of rock, which the frost would have acted upon and loosened ; it 

 will thus be seen that the valley gradually becomes filled with a mixture of 

 snow and ice and stones — in short, a glacier. We will presume that this 

 valley is of considerable length, and varying in width, that its contents (the 

 glacier) move at the rate of about four feet in twenty-four hours. Such a 

 powerful agent as would be represented by a glacier say of at least 4000 feet 

 thick, as might be assumed existed under the Remarkable Range, would, when 

 in its advance to the sea coast, by its enormous weight, break down, grind, and 

 score the rocks over and by the sides of which it travelled ; and when this 

 system or ice period changed, we might look for its refuse in the shape of stray 

 strange stones, abroad in the country, as its influence dried up — as, in short, 

 we find in our own case from the coast to Mount Aurum. 



So far as our knowledge extends as yet into this glacial period, its normal 

 condition would appear to have been that of a steady advance from the highest 

 peaks to the coast line, accompanied in its coui'se by vast volumes of running 

 water. The existence of this water, owing to heat of the sun and internal 

 heat of the eai'th, as evidenced by hot springs and active volcanoes, presents 

 an anomaly in this otherwise frozen period ; but as the state of the earth and 

 its atmosphere to-day is such that we find the heat, at some considerable 

 number of feet high — -say, at least, 2000 feet in this province — sufficient to 



