Wellington Philosophical Society. 375 



two years, the summer snow has greatly diminished, and a corresponding 

 diminution has taken place in the supply of ice at the terminal faces of many 

 of the glaciers. Within the last few months a great change is reported to have 

 taken place in the outline of the siimmit of Mount Cook, owing to a great 

 avalanche having slipped from the ridge, which leaves a conspicuous gap in 

 the formerly even, tent-like form of the apex. 



As I have stated that I agree in the main with Captain Hutton's views 

 respecting glacier action, I may be permitted to explain, without entering on a 

 controversy, that I was the first to describe the formation of the Wakatipu 

 Lake as a clearly-marked example of glacier erosion, in my report to the 

 Provincial Government of Otago, in 1864 ; and that, at the same date, Mr. 

 M'Kerrow — to whom Captain Hutton attributes the idea, as if it was opposed 

 to my views — reported that the problem of the manner by which these lakes 

 had been formed still required solution, and made no allusion to any ice 

 action having taken part in their formation. 



I must refer to the volume of geological reports for the progress which 

 has been made during the past year in the survey of the country, and may 

 state that the descriptive catalogues of fossils from the tertiary formations, and 

 also an illustrated work on the fossil plants from the different coal-bearing 

 formations, are now far advanced towards publication. The development of 

 the wonderful Reptilian fauna in our upper secondary rocks will be 

 communicated to the Society during this session. Already at least seven 

 distinct forms have been worked out from the blocks of matrix collected at 

 the Amuri Bluff and at the Waipara, and these gigantic Saurians will be sure 

 to excite great interest in the study of the geological structure of this country, 

 and, by exciting discussion at home, will indirectly attract attention to its 

 mineral and other resources. 



The only papers contributed to the Institiite on purely chemical subjects 

 emanate, as usual, from Mr Skey. In them I find that the author has 

 continued his researches into the formation of native gold, and he begins his 

 description of the results of these by combating the idea that gold is 

 precipitated from solution only by organic matter. He then proceeds to 

 describe a method of producing alloys of gold with silver by a " wet 

 process," and thereby removing one of the great objections which has been 

 urged against the hydrothermic formation of aurifei-ous veins. In these 

 experiments the solutions and re-agents employed were precisely such as were 

 known in lodes that traverse rock masses, and he therefore maintains that our 

 native gold alloys, which are so largely developed on the Thames Goldfield, 

 have been produced by this method. Another paper by Mr. Skey is devoted 

 to the discussion of the origin of large gold nuggets in drift formations ; and, 

 by a series of experiments, has confirmed the view first hazarded by Mr. 



