507 
the mountain-passes, reaching sometimes the height of 5000 feet, 
thus enabling the traveller to proceed from range to range, from 
valley to valley , without (nice setting foot upon the native rock. 
The most prominent example of drift-formation, formed partly by 
the accumulations of the old pleistocene glaciers, partly by the de- 
posits of the torrents falling from the ranges to the sea, are the 
Canterbury Plains, the formation of which has been so clearly 
shown by the combined labours and investigations of Messrs. Ilaast, 
E. Dobson, Beetham, Doyne, and several others. 1 In concluding 
the chapter of the Southern Alps, I may be allowed to dwell upon 
those plains, which, by their position, nature and general charac- 
teristics, form such a prominent feature upon the South Island. 
The Canterbury Plains extend from Double Corner, South of 
the mouth of the Hurunui to the dolerite plateau of Timaru. Their 
lenerth from N. E. to S. W. is 112 miles. Their breadth from a 
few miles at both extremities, North and South, augments as we 
advance towards their centre, having their greatest lateral extension 
near Banks’ Peninsula, where in a direction from East to West 
they stretch a distance of more than fifty miles to the base of the 
mountains. A long uninterrupted shore-line, called the Ninety miles 
Beach, streches from Timaru towards the volcanic system of Banks’ 
Peninsula which rises so conspicuously from that low shore, and 
to the existence of which a great portion of the loose strata com- 
posing the plains owe mainly their preservation from the destruc- 
tive agencies of the waves and currents. The plains rise from the 
East Coast towards the mountains, reaching at the foot of the hills 
a height of 1500 feet. A general section, taken in a direct line 
from the sea to the hills maybe described as a curved line, differ- 
ing but little from dead level near the coast, but rising at a grad- 
ually increasing gradient until it reaches the hills, which, inmost 
places, rise abruptly from the plains. The material as found upon 
the surface of the plains, and for a depth, as proved by wells sunk 
1 Dr. Ilaast, Report on the formation of the Canterbury Plains 1861. \V. T. 
Doyne, Report upon the Plains and Rivers of Canterbury 1864. — W. T. Doyne 
Second Report upon the River Maimakariri and Lower Plains of Canterbury 1865. 
