S outhern H emisphere . 
1 877.] 
339 
containing bones of extinct mammals overlie marine strata 
of late Pliocene age. 
On the east coast, great plains, separated by rocky pro- 
montories, border the sea. The well-known Canterbury 
Plains are the greatest of these outspreads of gravel : they 
have been well described by Dr. Haast, and the question of 
their origin has been a fruitful source of controversy ; they 
are 112 miles in length, and run back from the coast to the 
base of the mountains in the interior; gradually rising until 
they attain an elevation of about 1500 feet above the sea, 
according to Dr. Hochstetter.* These plains are composed 
of boulders, gravels, sand, and clay, and in some parts the 
deposits are upwards of 200 feet thick. Throughout the 
whole formation no marine remains have been found. At 
Banks’s Peninsula the gravel-beds are replaced by deposits 
of silt that cover the volcanic hills to a height of about 
800 feet above the sea. This fine loam must, from its 
description, closely resemble the loess of the Rhine and 
Danube, and it contains the bones of the great wingless 
birds and land-shells, but nowhere has the least trace of 
marine life been found in it.t 
We have thus in New Zealand a repetition of the pheno- 
mena observed in Patagonia — great plains of gravel and silt 
on the eastern, and deep sounds or fiords on the western, 
coasts. In both countries the deposits of the plains entomb 
the remains of large extindl animals, and their geological 
age is fixed by both overlying marine beds of late Pliocene 
age. They are the representatives in position of the 
glacial beds of the northern hemisphere. Considering the 
very different distribution of land and water in the two 
hemispheres the resemblance of their glacial phenomena is 
most remarkable. Yet still more remarkable is it that most 
of the able naturalists of New Zealand not only deny that 
there is proof of a Glacial epoch in their country, but even 
are inclined to refuse us one elsewhere on the evidence they 
find there. I do not gather very clearly Dr. Haast’s opinion 
on this question, and as a few years ago he was certainly in 
favour of New Zealand having been covered with an ice- 
sheet like Greenland, he may perhaps be excepted ; but the 
remainder of the geologists, headed by Dr. Hedlor and 
Capt. Hutton, contend that the glaciation of New Zealand 
had no connexion with a general glacial period, and that 
the great accumulation of ice was owing to the mountains 
* New Zealand, English Edition, p. 508. 
f Dr. Haast, Trans. New Zeal. Inst., vol. vi., p. 423. 
2 A 2 
