Canterbury and Westland. 369 



collected from similar deposits of clay, in which they occur often with 

 a linear arrangement. The land having been gradually raised for 

 several hundred feet after the formation of the Pareora beds, all that 

 portion of the country, not being subject to fluviatile action, now 

 became exposed to physical conditions favourable to the formation of 

 loess. The deposition of these beds where the ground has remained 

 in its virgin state, is going on still without interruption. It may 

 therefore truly be said, that the loess formation, commencing in 

 pliocene times, has not yet come to its termination. Thus during the 

 Great Glacier period of New Zealand, next to be treated — beginning 

 towards the end of the pliocene and ending in the post-pliocene period 

 — during quarternary and recent times, the loess beds have gone on 

 accumulating steadily, so as to reach such a considerable thickness, as 

 we find them amongst other localities on the lower slopes of Banks' 

 Peninsula and on the Timaru plateau. "Where they occur in the 

 neighbourhood of the channels formed by the great glacier rivers, they 

 are sometime overlaid and preserved by fluviatile deposits. In some 

 other instances loess beds of smaller extent are inters tratified with the 

 latter. Finally towards the end of the Great Glacier period, when the 

 rivers descending from the Southern Alps began to lay their channels 

 lower by cutting into and removing the fluviatile deposits previously 

 formed by them, the remaining portion of the plains became in its 

 turn, and wherever favourable circumstances presented themselves, 

 extensively covered by loess beds formed in the manner previously 

 described. These beds, on close examination, are easily to be distin- 

 guished from the deposits of silt or ooze formed during great freshets, 

 when the muddy waters spreading as one broad sheet over the country 

 In the neighbourhood of the river channels, cover it with deposits 

 resembling to the casual observer the former, in their lithological 

 character. 



Extent. 

 I have already alluded to the fact that the volcanic system of Banks' 

 Peninsula having doubtless remained above the sea level since its 

 formation, and being at the same time not subjected to fluviatile denu- 

 dation possessed most favourable conditions for deposition of loess. 

 In the north of the province the downs rising from the Canterbury 

 plains at the foot of Mount Grey and reaching as far as the Ashley 

 and the Moeraki Downs, are capped by these beds under review. In 

 the Malvern Hills they are also well represented. More to the south 



