372 Geology of 



and of which one fragment had the markings of Venus (Chione) 

 Stuchluryi of our seas, were given to me as having been extracted 

 from the same beds, but a few years later I ascertained that they had 

 been found by my informant at the foot of the cliff. They were 

 doubtless obtained from a kitchen midden of a Maori encampment. A 

 further reason for adopting such a theory was, that I met with, 

 apparently horizontal terraces and lines, together with erratic blocks 

 high in the mountain ranges, some of them 5200 feet above the level 

 of the sea, whilst other newer deposits, derived from lateral moraines 

 and descending the valleys, had partly obliterated them. The latter I 

 interpreted correctly, whilst the former (as on the other side of the 

 valley the mountains were often not so high as to suggest the expla- 

 nation that large inland lakes could have existed), I mistook for old 

 sea beaches. However, when these old lines and beaches were 

 examined by me with the spirit level in hand I found that thej had 

 either a slight fall, scarcely noticeable to the naked eye, and thus in 

 that case were the banks of ancient river channels, or, in other 

 instances, where the beaches were really horizontal they proved to be 

 the margin of ancient glacier lakes, the waters of which had been 

 dammed up by enormous ice masses crossing tributary valleys. Fine 

 examples of this latter physical feature I observed in the Upper 

 Ashburton and Rangitata plains, and on the right bank of the Tasman 

 river opposite to the junction of the River Jollie. Moreover, if the 

 country had been submerged for several thousand feet, Banks' Penin- 

 sula would, even admitting the possible occurrence of a great unequal 

 ratio of subsidence between east and west, have been at one time 

 entirely, or at least for the greater part, below the level of the sea, and 

 in consequence, would have offered a very favourable locality for the 

 stranding of icebergs, and the deposition of their detritus loads. 

 However, after the most minute examination, I was not able to find 

 the least sign of any boulder or pebble of other than local origin ; there- 

 fore, the conclusion was forced upon me that the origin of these well- 

 defined beds of the Alps was not of glacial or marine, but of glacier or 

 subaerial origin, and all further observations both on the east and west 

 slopes of the Southern Alps have amply confirmed that view. 



In fact the results of my researches proved, that already during the 

 beginning of the Pliocene period the country previously submerged to a 

 considerable depth, had begun to rise gradually, and when emerging 

 again above the sea level, appeared in a plateau -like form, but with some 

 depressions which bad existed before the tertiary submergence, now 

 partly obliterated. As soon as the country had risen so high as to reach 



