302 



Uhwait— Twenty-Foot Terraa <i/u/ 



are from 30 to 50 feet high, there is hardly a sign of wave 

 work at the high-tide mark : the freshwater marsh of t lie 

 terrace passes gradually outward and downward into salt- 



marsh and mad-flats. The infantile condition of the modern 

 shoreline is quite as striking :i> the full maturity of the higher 

 one. 



Opportunity was found, on the journey from Little Metis to 

 Mataue, ro follow the old sea-cliff continuously for more than 



Fig. 6. 



Fig. fi. The old sea-cliff about four miles east of Bic. The Intercolonial 

 Railway lies on the tweatv-foot terrace close to the foot of the cliff, -which 

 is here over 120 feet bi"h. 



25 miles. Although undeveloped at Mac Nider's, where 

 ledges and obscure beaches occur at the twenty-foot mark, the 

 cliff appears a few miles beyond, near Sandy Bay. From 

 here on, the carriage road runs along the terrace, hugging 

 rather closely to the present beach, at the outer edge of the 

 terrace, but now and then drawing near the foot of the old 

 sea-cliff, where an ancient headland forms a blunt projection 



