Canterbury and Westland. 275 



remnant, whilst the main land has long since disappeared below the 

 sea. We perceive, moreover, that according to the state of the rivers 

 or the changes of the currents, the character of the deposits also 

 -changed, the pebble and conglomerate beds representing the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the mouths of the rivers, whilst the fine-grained 

 sandstones represent the littoral zone, and the clay-slates, and shales 

 those regions of the bottom of the palaeozoic sea where only fine 

 particles of ooze could be deposited. The great scarcity of animal 

 and vegetable remains in these rocks is very remarkable, and as we 

 have no reason to believe that the sea was devoid of organic life, we 

 either must assume that in many instances various agencies have been 

 at work to destroy its record, or that from other physical causes 

 animal life was very scarce. In order to explain more fully what I 

 mean, I may point out that there are markings or obscure exuviae 

 of an Annelid in many of the shales, which rocks consequently 

 could have preserved to us those of Mollusks had they been abundant. 

 I have found these identical fossils near the sources of the Kangitata 

 and of the Rakaia, in the very heart of the Southern Alps, near the 

 mouth of the Hurunui, on the East Coast, and in many localities in 

 the Malvern Hills, whilst sandy shales with markings of f ucoid plants, 

 identical in character, are met with in many localities, such as the 

 Grorge of the Ashley, on the southern base of Mount Cook, and in 

 the Four Peak range. 



If we apply the late deep sea researches and their inductions 

 concerning the Mediterranean, as given by Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S., and 

 Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, F.B.S., in the Proceedings of the Eoyal Society, 

 Tolume XIX, No. 125, to the physical conditions which might have 

 prevailed in our palaeozoic seas during the formation of the New 

 Zealand strata under review, our difficulties under that head will be 

 easily removed. "We know that in our palaeozoic strata there are beds 

 of conglomerate of enormous thickness, the boulders of which they 

 are composed showing that they must have been derived from ranges 

 of great lithological variety, and indicating that they were brought 

 ■down by large rivers, whilst the general character of the whole 

 strata associated with these conglomerates indicates clearly that they 

 could only have been formed from the sediment of such rivers. Thus 

 it is easily conceivable that one of the conditions might have existed 

 which now prevails in the more central portion of the Mediterranean 

 to the prejudice of the existence of animal life, namely, turbidity of the 

 bottom water. Of course this might have been only one of the causes 



