1 877.] 
Southern Hemisphere. 
337 
ancient ones as those of the European Alps do to the much 
larger ones of the Glacial period. The western sea-board 
is penetrated by long sounds or fiords, many of which are 
more than 1000 feet deep. On the eastern side of the range 
the fiords are replaced by arms of large and deep fresh-water 
lakes ; and so far do the marine fiords on one side, and the 
arms of the fresh-water lakes on the other, cut into the 
mountain chain that in many places they reach to within 
10 miles of each other.* The New Zealand geologists 
appear to be unanimous in ascribing the formation of the 
sounds and deep lakes to the adtion of ice. The former 
great extension of the glaciers is marked by immense mo- 
rainic accumulations and transported boulders. These 
deposits have been ably described by Dr. Haast. For more 
than 90 miles south of the River Mikonuhi, on the western 
coast, all the lower country is covered by mounds and 
sheets composed of unstratified clays packed with boulders 
from the mountain chain. The moraines form low hills 
bounding the sea, the waves of which have cut them into 
cliffs. Along the whole of this shore glaciers must have 
descended from the New Zealand Alps down to, and pro- 
bably beyond the present sea-level. Some of the imbedded 
blocks exposed in the sections on the sea-coast are of im- 
mense size, often larger than the celebrated Pierre-a-bot, in 
the Jura. These blocks have principally been brought from 
the very centre of the chain, and the distribution of the 
different rock formations in the drift and alluvial beds has 
led Dr. Haast to the conclusion that the configuration of 
the mountain chain was similar to what it is now at the 
time of the great extension of the glaciers.fi 
On the eastern side of the range the old glaciers did not 
reach to so low a level as on the western side, but terminated 
many miles from the sea-coast, which is hounded by great 
plains of stratified drift. In the northern part of the South 
Island Mr. Locke Travers has shown that many of the lakes 
are enclosed by huge moraines,! and in the North Island 
there is also evidence of intense glacial adtion. 
The southern and eastern coasts of the South Island are 
bordered by great plains, composed of gravel and rounded 
boulders, which sometimes overlie beds of silt containing 
bones of the extindt moas. In the south part of the island 
the Southland Plains extend for nearly 40 miles along the 
* Hutton and Ulrich, Report on the Geology and Gold-Fields of Otago. 
1875. 
f Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxiii., p. 350. 
t Ibid., vol. xxii., p. 254. 
VOL. VII. (N.S.) 2 A 
