Canterbury and Westland. 173 



The south-west and north-east coasts of the Southern Island present 

 us with picturesque fiords — enormous mountain masses rising here 

 abruptly from the sea, and deep indentations running for many miles 

 inland. The parallel between this coast and the south-western coast 

 of America or those of Norway and Scotland is very striking, and just 

 as South America has an insulated continuation in the Terra del Euego, 

 bo we find Stewart's Island separated from the Southern Island by 

 Eoveaux Straits. May we not therefore attribute to one common 

 cause the fact, that nearly every continent has been devastated by 

 some destructive force coming from the West, until it has been 

 arrested by huge mountain chains, forming a saving barrier to the low 

 lands lying at their eastern base ? 



This longitudinal chain, appropriately called the Southern Alps by 

 Captain Cook, reaches its highest elevation and greatest development 

 in the Provinces of Canterbury and Westland, its principal water- 

 shed forming the boundary line between them. Extensive fields of 

 perpetual snow repose on its slopes, from which large glaciers descend 

 far into the valleys. I may also mention, that in the adjoining 

 Province of Otago to the south — Mount Earnslaw and other peaks, 

 and in the Northern Province of Nelson — the Spencer Mountains 

 rise considerably above the perpetual snow-line, where also true 

 glaciers, although of smaller extent than in the Southern Alps proper, 

 take their origin. Numerous diverging ranges of large extent branch 

 off from this stupendous chain, running towards the east coast, and 

 when reaching the western foot of the Canterbury plains, are still of 

 considerable altitude (six to seven thousand feet) . As before men- 

 tioned, the divergent ranges or secondary ridges on the western side 

 are far shorter, the Alps falling here abruptly towards the coast. 

 Although the form and altitude of the divergent chains, branching off 

 from the Southern Alps have been greatly modified by the effects 

 produced during the great Ice Period of New Zealand, the position of 

 their valleys, their direction and peculiar main features may be 

 traced to abyssological disturbances having taken place during a much 

 older period in the earth's history, and of which I shall treat more 

 fully in the geological portion of this publication. However, a few 

 characteristic points bearing upon the physical features of the country 

 may here be shortly noticed, as, without doing so, it would be difficult 

 to understand the structure of the chain under consideration. 



As pointed out by me in previous reports, the Southern Alps consist 

 almost entirely of stratified rocks of palaeozoic age, thrown in huge 



