380 Geology of 



In a paper by Count Gaston de Saporta, in the Coinpte rendu of 

 "the Seventh Session of the " Congres International d' Anthropologic et 

 -d'Archeologie Prehistoriques," Stockholm, 1876, Vol. I, some further 

 interesting conclusions on the same subject are offered to us. The 

 learned author in examining a series of fossil plants collected in 

 quarternary tufas at Moret (Seine et Loire), Trance, of which several 

 — such as the Ficus carica — now only grow in the south of France, 

 ■comes also to the conclusion that during the Glacial period of Europe 

 (or, as he now proposes to call it more correctly, the Glacier Period 

 of Europe) an equable temperate but moist climate was reigning, that 

 this period continued during a long space of time, and that in the 

 valleys, on the slopes of the Alps and of other mountain chains, there 

 was ample room for the existence of a rich animal and vegetable life. 

 Count de Saporta does not assume that the level of the country stood 

 at a higher level than it does at present, but believes that the elevation 

 ■of the mountain chains from the tertiary seas, together with greater 

 humidity of the temperature, were the principal causes of the extension 

 of the glaciers. He further concludes, that this extension took place 

 before the quartemary period, and that probably already during 

 pliocene times the phenomenon reached its apogee. Consequently 

 the views of this eminent palaeontologist are quite in accordance with 

 those advocated by me for nearly fifteen years at the Antipodes, and 

 thus similar simple but effectual causes are assigned on both hemis- 

 pheres to have produced the remarkable extension of snow-fields and 

 glaciers, of which a delineation has been attempted for Canterbury 

 and Westland in the map attached to this publication. As already 

 pointed out, Ave find din ornithic remains not only in the silt and loess 

 beds, but they are also met with in the alluvial deposits formed by the 

 large torrents once issuing from the gigantic glaciers, and even in the 

 morainic accumulations themselves. There is thus ample evidence 

 that the moa existed and flourished during the whole of the Great 

 Glacier period. Now if we examine the map illustrating this chapter, 

 and remember that by far the greatest portion of the Canterbury 

 plains, together with smaller plains of similar origin in other portions 

 of this Island, did not exist, it is difficult to conceive how these large 

 birds could have been flourishing on such comparatively small space of 

 ground — bounded on all sides by vast snow-fields, glaciers, and great 

 torrents. It has been shown by me, and as I think so far conclu- 

 sively, that there has been neither a great rise or fall of the land 

 during the Great Glacier period, and there remains therefore, if we 

 wish to admit a greater extension of the land in that era, only one 



