Geological Survey of Canterbury. 171 



Survey of the Province had come to a close. I need scarcely add that 

 a great deal of Geological work still remains to be done ; the more the 

 country is opened up by settlement, and new geological facts, brought 

 to light by railway and road cuttings, tunnels, and mining enterprise, 

 are made accessible to us, the more the usefulness of geological 

 examinations will be confirmed. However, it will be seen from perusing 

 this Eeport, that the principal features of the G-eology of Canterbury 

 have been fully ascertained, and that only details have to be worked 

 out, for which purpose the lifetime of one single worker is far too 

 short. In the Preface, the circumstances by which it has become 

 possible to publish this Eeport have been stated, so that I need not 

 refer to them again in this chapter, which has already assumed larger 

 proportions than was intended at the outset ; but it was urged upon 

 me that a narrative of explorations, in which the physical aspect of 

 a great deal of the country, its climate and natural history could be 

 described in a popular form, would be very acceptable to the general 

 reader, who would thus become better acquainted than in any other 

 way with the whole subject treated of in the following chapters. 



