W. Travers. — On Extinct Glaciers in the South island. 303 



greater differences exist between their respective flora and fauna than exist 

 between those of England and the continent of Europe, the connection between 

 which was only severed in pleistocene times. It will at once be seen by those 

 who have had an opportunity of perusing Dr. Haast's elaborate report on the 

 Canterbury plains (presented to the Provincial Government of Canterbury in 

 September, 1864), that the views contained in the foregoing brief sketch are 

 altogether at variance with those which he there propounded in reference to 

 ■what he has termed " the pleistocene glaciation of New Zealand," 



Whilst giving reasons for his belief that the southern island of New 

 Zealand has never been higher than it is at present, he nevertheless asserts 

 that it was subjected, in earlier pleistocene times, to a general glaciation 

 analogous to that of Greenland. His words are : " It is not necessary to give 

 a picture of the desolate aspect of the country in those pleistocene times ; but 

 when reading the descriptions of Dr. Kane, of Greenland, and of other arctic 

 and antarctic explorers, it brought visibly before my mind that this island 

 during that era would have presented a very similar appearance." He, how- 

 ever, adduces no evidence whatsoever in support of this statement, nor does he 

 attempt to account for the suggested glaciation otherwise than by a loose 

 assertion " that the climate had changed by some physical causes, and assumed 

 an antarctic character." For my own part I have never seen — at least in 

 those portions of the South Island mountains which I have personally visited 

 — the slightest evidence which could support such a statement, or which would 

 have led me to the belief that, even during the greatest elevation of the land 

 of which any indication I'emains, it presented features of glaciation differing 

 (except in such degree as would naturally follow in this latitude) from those 

 which it now presents where glaciers of the first order still exist. 



In this connection the following extracts from the Duke of Argyll's 

 address (in February of this year), as President of the Geological Society of 

 London, have a distinct application to the existing physical features of the 

 Middle Island mountains. His Grace says : — " If I may judge from a paper 

 lately contributed by Professor Ramsay to ' Macmillan's Magazine,' upon the 

 valley of the Po, and from the recent discussion on Mr. J. F. Campbell's very 

 interesting paper on the glaciation of Iceland, it seems to be admitted by 

 Professor Kamsay that no larger amount of work can be assigned to the 

 glaciers of the glacial epoch than that of greatly deepening the valleys which 

 existed before. If this be admitted, then the question of the effects of glacial 

 denudation in determining the existing configuration of the suiface of the 

 earth becomes a comparatively narrow question. The existence of a glacial 

 epoch, at least over a large part of the Northern Hemisphere, which, in its 

 coming, its duration, and its passing away, has been the latest in the great 

 agencies of change, is perhaps one of the most firmly established doctrines of 



