Geological Survey of Canterbury. 189 



Carriage road Hill, so called from a very interesting shelf sloping 

 towards west, or opposite to the general direction of the great post- 

 pliocene Bakaia glacier. This shelf, rising at an angle of about 9 deg. for 

 several hundred feet, is about 15 feet broad, and as regular as if formed 

 by the hand of man. ' It would be quite smooth had not some blocks 

 of debris fallen upon it from the summit. There are similar but 

 smaller terraces above and below it, all running in the same direction. 

 At first I thought that perhaps unusually large beds of conglomerate, 

 striking and dipping in this direction, had offered so much resistance to 

 the denuding or disintegrating powers that these shelves had been pre- 

 served, but an examination of the strata proved conclusively to the 

 contrary. There is, therefore, only one other explanation of these 

 remarkable roads possible, which were so striking a feature to the first 

 explorers that they named the range after them, namely, that the ice- 

 masses descending by the valley, and uniting with those commg by the 

 large Byton valley, were stopped and compelled to ascend, in order to 

 move on with the larger masses standing at a higher level. That the 

 power of ice has been here unusually great, is well exhibited by the 

 roche moutonnee standing opposite the junction of the valley of the 

 "World with that of the Byton. This hill, named from its perfect 

 form "Bound Hill," is a very striking instance of the power of ice 

 to plane down all sinuosities in its way, if only time enough is allowed 

 for it. 



Five or six terraces, together about 150 feet high, form both banks 

 of the Byton, which river brings the most important supply of water 

 to Lake Coleridge. Ascending the terraces on the left bank of this 

 river, we find ourselves on a plateau about 150 feet above the level 

 of the lake, consisting of the former delta of this river and some minor 

 rivulets coming from the Craigieburn range, and through which the 

 latter have afterwards also excavated channels. Following the last of 

 them in a south-easterly direction, we enter again the opening parallel 

 to Lake Coleridge, where Lake Greorgina and a smaller swampy lake 

 are situated, bounded on both sides by glacialised hills. A small 

 shingle-fan of about 10 feet, resembling all the others previously de- 

 scribed, forms here also the watershed, the water flowing in opposite 

 directions. It is thus evident that physical causes, recently in operation, 

 have given to these remarkable parallel depressions their peculiar 

 form, and that the action of enormous glaciers, at work in the epoch 

 preceding the present one, the effects of which being little obliterated, 

 can account only for the curious phenomena met with everywhere in 



