Canterbury and Westland. 397 



deposits, such as they are formed at the present day on flats like 

 Gabriel's Gully and Weatherstoce, conforming in every respect on a 

 small scale with the deposits formed at the termination of the gigantic 

 glaciers duringthe Great Ice period. Professor Hutton in his various 

 writings has been contending that the Canterbury plains must be of 

 submarine origin, and that afterwards they have been raised above the 

 sea level, when the rivers excavated their present channels, as terraces 

 could only be formed during a rising of the land, and he brings 

 forward a formidable array of scientific authorities in support. How- 

 ever, similar terraces, as I have pointed out previously, occur in all 

 Alpine regions, in the European Alps, the Himalayas, the B-ocky 

 Mountains, and many other localities, where in several instances there 

 is overwhelming evidence towards proving a subsidence of the lands 

 since post-pliocene times. I should not have alluded to this question did 

 not Professor Hutton in his last work, " Geology of Otago,"* still per- 

 sist in claiming for the Canterbury plains a submarine origin, although 

 he adopts for the former province the theory that the land during the 

 Great Glacier period stood at a higher level than it possesses at 

 present. As according to him, river terraces prove elevation, he fails 

 to explain how the beautiful and perfect series of terraces in the 

 Clutha valley could have been formed during subsidence, and it is 

 thus difficult to reconcile his statement, that the plains in Otago 

 "have certainly been formed in the way suggested by Dr. Haast." 

 I wish here once more to repeat that the Canterbury plains on 

 either side of the Malvern Hills are not on the same level ; on the 

 contrary, the difference is very considerable, and as the railway and 

 other levels have shown, the fans of each river are quite distinct. 

 The sections of the Canterbury plains attached to this Eeport, Nos. 1 

 and 2, on plate 8, drawn from more correct information than I 

 formerly possessed, will, I trust, settle this question definitely. The 

 diagrams in Mr. Thomson's excellent paper, previously mentioned, 

 giving the curves of several valleys and the theoretical bearings of 

 the question at issue, further confirm my views, that the Canterbury 

 plains have been exclusively formed by the accumulations of the rivers 

 still flowing through them. 



Advancing now to a consideration of the general laws by which the 

 formation of river beds are regulated, first, as far as I am aware, 



* " Geology of Otago;" Hutton and Ulrich (page 91). 



