Glacial Epoch of Australia. 275 
beds, it becomes at once evident that a rising of the land 
took place, although probably of only small vertical extent, 
immediately after their deposition, and that the glacier epoch 
‘then began, succeeded at once by that era in which the 
quaternary beds proper were formed, if we call so all beds 
of the recent era, or at least those deposited since our great 
glaciers retreated to their present position. 
Thus although great and important changes in the physical 
condition of New Zealand have taken place while these 
beds were being deposited, for which a long lapse of time 
was necessary, nevertheless when compared with the geologi- 
cal record in general these three last changes occupied but a 
moment in the earth’s history, and gave but little time for 
the extinction and reproduction of new species, if we except 
the extinction of our gigantic wingless birds, due principally 
I think, to human agency. 
However, I believe that during the glacier epoch of New 
Zealand, the most of the New Zealand marine species tra- 
velled northwards, and only partly returned when the great 
glaciers retreated, and the present physical conditions entered 
into existence, of which there is ample evidence to be found 
in our youngest tertiary beds. 
But what would the geologist, who had travelled along 
the east coast observe, were he to advance some thirty miles 
inland towards the Southern Alps? He would find all the 
lower mountains which form the outrunning species of that 
gigantic chain, leeworn, innumerable roches-moutonnées 
standing along or even in the courses of the former immense 
glaciers, the lower end of which, during their greatest ex- 
tension, had reached very often fifty miles below their pre- 
sent terminal face; huge terminal and lateral moraines 
generally encircling and forming our picturesque Alpine 
Jakes ; miles and miles of ground covered by morainic ac- 
cumulations, broad and straight river beds, the former 
glacier channels sometimes three miles wide, filled with 
shingle-beds, in which the muddy glacier torrents flow in 
numerous channels, and by which, without encountering any 
serious obstacle, we reach the existing glaciers. 
And, considering the size of the Alpine chain, even the 
present New Zealand glaciers are of enormous dimensions 
when compared with the European Alps, so that to find an 
explanation to this phenomenon, we have to examine 
the climatological conditions of New Zealand, its insular 
position, and the direction of its Alps, principally in’ refer. 
