Neza Zealand in the Ice ^-ige. — Hitchcock. 279 
ki river. The map, Plate xxvi, will give some idea of the extent 
of this deposit, as it constitutes the "Mackensie Plains." Ac- 
cording to Dr. Haast this area indicated the presence of a trunk 
glacier thirty miles broad with three outlets besides the one on 
the Waitaki. Its thickness must have been 5,000 feet and the ice 
extended to a point twenty-five miles from the sea, giving 112 
miles as its length. 
Similar statements may be made about the former extent 
of glaciers upon seven large rivers in the province of Canter- 
bury, between latitudes 45' and 43'. At the lower ends of the 
glaciers the fans commenced, whose general extent is indicated 
upon Plate xxiv. Because the region is the most thickly popu- 
lated the Canterbury plains have been carefully explored, and 
by measurements made it is certain that there is a gradual rise 
from the ocean inland up the AVaimakariri, Selwyn and Rakaia 
rivers in deposits of gravel, sand and silt, of material derived 
from the upper reaches of the streams scores of miles away. 
The plains are the "deposits of huge rivers issuing from the' 
frontal ends of gigantic glaciers. According to Dr. Haast the 
Selwyn river flowed at the junction of the fan of the Waima- 
kariri and tha\t oi the combined Rangitata, Ashburton and 
Rakaia rivers further southwest. The Banks peninsula was 
an island of igneous rock and has caused the junction of the 
fans with the marine wash of the fluviatile detritus, leaving 
still a considerable space unfilled, called lake Ellsmere. The 
glacial origin of the shingle can be well appreciated as the 
glacialist looks from his train crossing the rivers named above. 
CONCLU.SION.S. 
Some general conclusions may be given without further de- 
tail : 
1. The New Zealand glaciers are all of the Alpine tvpe — 
they don't pass the larger watersheds — and they are simply ex- 
tensions of the present ice system. There are no true erratics, 
I. c. blocks which have been trans])orted from one drainage sys- 
tem to another. Hence there was no continental ice sheet. 
Usually the glacier did not reach the seashore, and thus far 
no Arctic marine shells have l)een discovered in the sands 
2. The glaciers of the Southern alps are larger and finer 
than their congeners in the Swiss alps. Hence there is a 
