NEW ZEALAND GLACIERS. 443 
very prominent but barely angulated at the point of the base in ad- 
vance of the pillar ; the canal is shallow and open, witha very re- 
verted funnel-edge. Inner-lip concave, with a thick, narrow, defined 
labial pad, running down the very short pillar, whose point is 
sharp and expanded but not flanged. Oferculum plain-edged, 
small, triangular, slightly subspiral, having its apex terminal and 
bent in towards the left. H.057, B. 033. Penultimate whorl, 
height o'14. Mouth, height 0:25, breadth 0.2. Closely allied to 
N. Woodwardi, Forbes, but quite distinct.  Buccinum spinulosum, 
Phil. seems to have many points of resemblance, but judging 
from the description and figure, the ribs and spirals are much 
stronger, and the mouth is pointed above, and is longer below 
N. ephanulla having a broader and more truncate base. 
A JOURNEY AMONG THE NEW ZEALAND 
GUACTERS. 
Seer ek: ee 
BY REV. W. S. GREEN, M.A. 
> 
Read before the Royal Irish Academy, June 26th, 1882. 
The whole of New Zealand consists of a line of upheaved 
stratified rocks, modified in the northern portion by recent vol- 
canic activity, and in one or two other places showing traces of 
mere ancient vulcanicity. Theaxis of elevation runs from S.W. 
to N.E., and is cut across ‘into the North Island, South Island, 
and Stewart’s Island, by Cook’s and Foveaux’ Straits. In the 
South Island the mountains attain to their greatest elevation, 
and for over one hundred miles the Southern Alps, as they were 
named by Captain Cook, raise their peaks far above the snow 
line, in no place for the whole of that distance descending to a 
col or pass free from eternal snow and ice. Immense glaciers 
fill the valleys, and the remains of still more gigantic glaciers are 
everywhere to be met with. 
This chain, with its continuation north and south, seems to | 
have been upheaved in Jurassic times, and though it has ex- 
perienced many vicissitudes of upheaval and depression, it has 
never since, according to Professor Hutton, been submerged. 
These mountains are then of vastly greater antiquity than their 
European rivals, and their long exposure to the frosts and storms 
of ages is abundantly evidenced by the heaps of loose splintered 
stones to which all except the higher peaks have been reduced. 
~The mountains lie close to the west coast; their western 
flanks possess a humid climate (the rain-fal? at Hokitika being 
measured at 118 inches), and are clothed with forest and impene- 
trable scrub. The western glaciers in some places descend to within 
670 feet of the sea, and the rivers are short and swift. This low 
descent of the glaciers and the mean line of perpetual snow being 
at about 5000 feet, compared with 8000 in Switzerland, where also 
