1921.J 
Cotton.—Wellington and Earthquakes. 
231 
Interesting evidence of stability for probably thousands of years prior 
to 1855 is found just east of the harbour-entrance. Here Gollan’s Valley 
and the valley of a small and nameless stream debouching close to Pen- 
carrow Head are modified •“ drowned valleys.” As a result, evidently, of 
the same partial submergence of a considerable area of land that formed 
the harbour of Port Nicholson, the sea entered these small valleys, so that 
both were occupied by winding lanes of sea-water, that in Gollan’s Valley 
being about three miles long and the other rather more than a mile long. 
These bays are now cut off from the sea, and converted into fresh-water 
lakes, by gravel-bars 20 ft. in height above sea-level and accordant with 
the pre-1855 storm-beach ridge, which is well developed along the neigh¬ 
bouring shore-line in Fitzroy Bay. At the western end of each bar the 
outflowing water has opened a channel through the gravel (fig. 2). 
The enclosed bays are much reduced in size by the growth of swampy 
deltas at their heads, and the length of the two lakes which now occupy 
Fig. 2.—Lake Koangatera, at the drowned mouth of Gollan’s Valley, showing strongly- 
cut sea-cliffs along the sides and bordering the bay-head delta in the foreground. 
their lower parts "(Koangatera in Gollan’s Valley and Koangapiripiri in the 
other) is thus reduced now to about half a mile in each case. The upper 
part of Gollan’s Valley is also thickly aggraded with alluvium. Near the 
mouths the sides of both valleys are cliffed, and out-jutting points are 
strongly truncated (fig. 2). The cliffs reach a height of 100 ft. on the shores 
of Koangatera and 50 ft. around Koangapiripiri, and they are evidently 
the work of waves at a time when the bays were still deep and open to the 
ocean. For a mile up the somewhat winding Gollan’s Valley the swampy 
delta is bordered,' however, by low wave-cut cliffs. These must be the 
work of waves raised on the narrow, land-locked waters, and their presence 
indicates a long period of still-stand prior to 1855, for the relative levels of 
sea and land were constant long enough not only for the development of 
distinct cliffs (though on mature hillsides of weathered rocks, it is true) by 
waves with a fetch of no more than a few hundred yards, but also for the 
delta-front to advance for quite a mile past the farthest inland point where 
cliffs are traceable. This indicates, without any doubt, that the land stood 
still for thousands of years. 
