g6 Mr. H. H. Howorth on 



It is quite true that there is ample evidence that both in New- 

 Zealand and Australia, there were formerly glaciers on a 

 much greater scale than any now existing. On the other hand 

 the testimony of most careful and competent observers is 

 virtually unanimous as to there being no such traces of a 

 glacial age in the southern hemisphere, as we find in the 

 northern. As this is a matter of some moment, I must be 

 allowed to quote some authority for my statement. 



In regard to New Zealand, Haast, Hector, and Hochstetter 

 are agreed that the evidence is clearly in favour of the former 

 great extension of glaciers, and against any ice cap or any 

 so-called glacial period. Haast, who once advocated the 

 opposite view, abandoned it in 1864, and Hector writing 

 in 1 870 says, " The theory of an ice cap during the glacial 

 period ... is quite irreconcileable with observed facts,, 

 and the former extension of the glacier is sufficiently 

 accounted for by the gradual reduction of the surface area 

 exposed above the perpetual snow line : Firstly, by its 

 erosion into valleys, ridges, and peaks ; and secondly, by 

 its gradual subsidence, a subsidence which has operated for 

 the most part continuously, though interrupted by irregular 

 and local elevations." (Geo/. Mag., VII., 95-6.) 



In a paper by Captain Hutton (who studied the geology 

 of New Zealand so well), which was printed in the 12th 

 volume of the Geological Magazine, he absolutely denies 

 the existence of evidence of the former existence there of a 

 glacial period ; he points out that at Wanganui, in Cook's 

 Straits in New Zealand, there is the most extensive pleisto- 

 cene shell-bearing bed on the island which has been well 

 worked. From this bed 91 species of shells are known of 

 which 81 are still living in the seas of New Zealand. "There 

 is, therefore," he says, " no evidence of reduction of tempera- 

 ture in the early part of the pleistocene period." 



Below this pleistocene bed is a blue clay in which 98 

 species of shells have occurred. Of these yj still inhabit the 



