214 Physical Geography of 



level of the tableland, about 2100 feet in altitude. The "Waimakariri^ 

 after Having excavated its channel in this plateau of lacustrine and 

 alluvial origin, then enters between the ranges, having on the northern 

 side the Puketerald range, and on the southern side Mount Torlesse, 

 It has cut a deep picturesque gorge, the mountain sides on both slopes 

 being covered with dense Fagus forest, through which no road has 

 hitherto been constructed. For six miles, the distance measured in a 

 straight line, the river winds through the gorge, running nearly south, 

 after which it enters the Canterbury plains. Flowing about 300 feet 

 below the level of the latter, the "VTaimakariri now assumes the 

 character of a broad shingle river, and receives, after a course of two 

 miles, the Kowai, which is its last affluent. For 41 miles the river 

 flows through the plains, being again retained in narrow rocky banks 

 at the lower gorge, four miles and a half below the junction of the 

 Kowai. This gorge is about a mile long, the river, instead of lowering 

 its bed through the alluvial deposits on both sides, having cut its way 

 through the hard palaeozoic rocks, of which the isolated Grorge hill 

 consists. The slope of the plains in these upper and middle portions, 

 being greater than the gradient of the present river-bed, the high 

 terraced banks, which hitherto accompanied the river-bed, disappear 

 about 12 miles from the mouth of the river, and the lower delta of the 

 river is reached, which, as I have already shown in my report on the 

 formation of the Canterbury plains in 1S64, is still being formed by 

 the river, which if not checked by artifical means will shift its channel 

 in course of time as the deposition of alluvial beds advances. 



The Ashbuetox. 



Of the rivers of glacier origin, the last which has its sources and its 

 whole course in the present Province of Canterbury, is the Ashburton, 

 the main source of which is situated on the eastern slopes of Mount 

 Arrowsmith, issuing from the Ashburton glacier, 4832 feet above the 

 sea level. For the first ten miles the river flows in a more or less open 

 channel between the ranges, where it is possible to follow its bed on 

 horseback to within two miles of the glacier. It here receives several 

 tributaries, of which one at the beginning of the Ashburton gorge, 

 draining the eastern slopes of the Potts range, is the most important. 

 It afterwards enters a deep, rocky gorge, where the traveller has to 

 follow the rocky shelves and glacier terraces several hundred feet 

 above the river, emerging, after a course of five miles, upon the Upper 



