444 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
town of Tauranga there is a raised beach, and beach terraces are plainly 
seen at Hicks Bay, near the East Cape, but I have never landed to 
examine them. At Taranaki Dr. Hector has described pleistocene 
deposits with recent shells at 150 feet above the sea. Beach terraces 
occur also near Wellington ; and Mr. McKay describes them as much 
more than 200 feet high near Cape Palliser, Cook Straits. On the 
west coast of the South Island Dr. Hector mentions comparatively 
recent beach terraces extending to more than 220 feet above the sea, 
and Mr. Dobson has estimated them at 400 feet. At Amuri Bluff there 
are three terraces, and from the highest, which is 500 feet above the sea, 
recent marine shells have been obtained. These three terraces are also 
seen a little further south, at the mouth of the River Conway. At 
Motanau, in North Canterbury, a raised beach, with marine shells, goes 
to a height of 150 feet above the sea. A deposit of fine silt occurs along 
the east coast of Canterbury and Otago, from Banks Peninsula to 
Moeraki. Atits base it is stratified, frequently with layers of gravel, 
but its upper portions appear to be unstratified. At Timaru it contains 
a few marine shells. At Oamaru the gravels at the base contain large 
numbers of recent shells, and the upper parts have yielded moa bones, 
and the skull of a large sea-elephant (Morunga proboseidea). This silt 
goes to a height of 800 feet at Banks Peninsula, and to 500 or 600 feet 
at Oamaru.* The entrances to the West Coast Sounds are terraced to 
an estimated height of 800 feet. 
If we plot these heights and distances to scale, it appears as if the 
rise were tolerably regular from Auckland to Banks Peninsula, but we 
must remember that the observations are still very imperfect. The 
remarkable river terraces found throughout the South Island and the 
southern and central portions of the North Island furnish collateral 
proof of elevation. They do not occur in the north part of New 
Zealand, where also there are no raised beaches. 
Several ancient turbary deposits have been examined in the South 
Island, such as those of Waikouaiti and Hamiltons, in Otago, and of 
Glenmark, in Canterbury ;- they all appear to be much alike in 
character. I take the one at Hamilton as an example, as I explored 
it myself. This was a small dry basin, about fifty feet in diameter, and 
five to six feet in the deepest part, excavated out of a bed of clay. 
This small basin was filled with peat and bones inextricably mixed, and 
before being disturbed its surface was rather higher than the surroun- 
ding country, which was quite flat for a distance of 200 yards. Out of 
this small hole there were taken about seven tons of moa bones, more 
than half being completely decayed, the remains of at least 400 birds, 
and they formed a compact layer from two to four feet thick.t A 
great quantity of quartz gravel occurred among the bones, some of the 
stones going up to one or two pounds weight ; and one piece of rock 
weighing between ten and twelve pounds was found. Probably it was 
but the remains of a much larger turbary deposit. Besides moa bones 
there were also found abundant remains of Cnemiornis, and a few bones 
of Harpagornis, and of Apteryx, as well as small. birds not yet 
determined ; also several bones of Sphenodon punctatum. The bones 
were not water-worn nor were they broken. I collected from the peat 
*The marine origin of this deposit is however disputed. 
+ Dr. V. Haast thinks that at least 1,000 birds were embedded in the Glenmark bog 
