260 PEOCEBDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 7, 



Passing from the valley of the Dillon into that of the Clarence, 

 distant about six miles in a direct line, and running parallel to it 

 for some thirty miles, but fully 1000 feet higher in point of level, 

 we find Lake Tennyson, dammed in by a moraine which rises about 

 fourteen or fifteen feet above the level of the water. This moraine 

 stretches about a mile and a half down the valley, sloping very 

 rapidly. I had no means of ascertaining the depth of the lake ; but 

 I do not believe it exceeds 400 to 500 feet : at aU events, there is 

 nothing to lead to the supposition that its bed is lower than the 

 foundations of the moraine by which it is dammed in. 



In the "case of these inland glaciers we have to assume that a 

 considerable body of the ice of which they were formed lay below the 

 upper level of the terminal moraine ; but this would not prevent the 

 water arising from the melting of the ice from escaping in the 

 same manner as that which flows from a retreating glacier. 



My knowledge of geology is not sufficiently great to enable me to 

 see any difficulty in supposing that ice may have existed in the 

 localities referred to during the enormous period required for the 

 deposition and reelevation of the above-mentioned Post-pliocene beds, 

 and this, therefore, I must leave to more competent judges ; but I 

 really cannot see anything to justify the opinion, that the lake-basins 

 owe their existence to the "scooping power of ice." 



I have confined my remarks to the lake-basins found among the 

 spurs of the Spencer Mountains, which, however, afford a fair ex- 

 ample of all the lake-basins north of the river Waitki. In fact, I 

 firmly believe that all the lakes which lie in the valleys of rivers 

 debouching pn the Canterbury Plains owe their existence to moraine 

 dams, which have the same foundations as the Post-pliocene shingle 

 of which the plains themselves are formed, and that, therefore, the 

 sites of those lakes were occupied by ice at the commencement of the 

 period of depression, and so continued for some time after the re- 

 emergence of the upper part of the plains above the level of the sea. 



2. On the Occurbence of dead Littoral Shells in the bed of the 

 Germain Ocean", forty miles from the coast of Aberdeejt. By 

 EoBERT Dawson, Esq. 



[Communicated by T. F. Jamieson, Esq., F.Gr.S.] 



(Abridged.) 



The bank called the " Long Forties," from 35 to 40 miles from 

 land, extends from opposite Kinnaird's Head in a direction nearly 

 parallel to the shore. Inside of this bank the depth varies from 90 

 fathoms at the northern end to about 50 fathoms opposite Aberdeen. 

 Being becalmed we dredged on this bank for a considerable time in 

 36 fathoms, 40 fathoms, and 42 fathoms, on a bottom of broken shells 

 and shingle. I remarked at the time that these dredgings contained 

 none of the Arctic fossils found so plentifully in every haul when 



