SIR RODERICK MURCHISON ON NEW ZEALAND.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2665, 1 September 1871, Page 2

SIR RODERICK MURCHISON ON NEW ZEALAND.

We extract from the anniversary address of the late illustrious President of the Royal Geographical Society, the following portion having reference to New Zealand : “Dr Haast, the very able geological surveyor of Canterbury Province, New Zealand, has sent us a valuable contribution on the physical geography and topography of the New Zealand Alps, in continuation of his important memoirs published in volumes xxxiv and xxxvii of our ‘ Journal.’ The recent paper, which he modestly put forth as notes to accompany his Topographical Map, which itself is a magnificent ad* dition to New Zealand geogi'aphy, contains some observations of-striking interest on the changes which have preceded the present physical condition of the central part of the Southern Island. It is by such observations that the science of geology is brought into close connection with that of geography, and the conclusions are of equal interest to the students of both these great branches of human knowledge. “Dr Haast compares the snow-clad mountains of the Canterbury province, which, as you are aware, lie parallel and near to the western coast of the island, to the Alps of Europe ; and shows the similarity between the two in their glaciers, and especially in the action of the warm winds, which, blowing from hotter regions, cause a rapid melting of the snow on the side of the mountains facing the direction of the wind. In fact, all the principal meteorological phenomena encountered in the European Alps occur also in New Zealand, the “nor-wester” of tha latter country being the representative of the “folm ” of Switzerland. The nor-wester having blown over a wide extent of ocean, and became charged with moisture, is the chief scource of the copious precipitation which, in the form of snow, caps the New Zealand peaks, and forms those large fields of neve which supply the great glaciers of the country. The glaciers and are stated by Dr Haast to exceed in dimension those of Switzerland; and he adduces further pooof of the curious fact, which had already excited much interest among physical geographers, that glaciers descend much lower on the western than on the eastern slopes of the mountains, and on the West Coast are in close contiguity to a luxuriant forest vegetation, consisting of pines, aborescent ferns, and flowering shrubs ; such, for example, are the Francis Joseph and Prince Alfred glaciers. On the eastern although of larger dimensions, they descend in the Canterbury province go lower- than 23QQ feet above the sea level. The cquse of the difference is owing partly to the smaller amount of moisture on the eastern, or leeward aide, and partly to the less abrupt slope. Large as the New Zealand glaciers and snow-fields are at present, they were formerly, in post-pliocene times, much more

extensive. Proofs of this are seen in all directions, in vast moraines heaped around the lakes lying at the foot of the mountains, and in marks of glacier action at levels far below their present limit. Dr Haast believes that the elevated plateau districts, which support the neve Holds, were at that time much more extensive, and that glaciers, reaching the sea gave off from their extremities detached portions, which floated away to the north as icebergs, as they do in Greenland at the present day. “With regard to other parts of these important islands, I may mention that a lively picture of the volcanic districts of the Northern Island of New Zealand was given in Lieut. Meade’s journals, published last year ; and that a valuable paper on the Province of Southland, by Mr Marten, has recently appeared in Mr S. W. Silver’s ‘ Circular and Colonial News.’ This paper is one of the results of a printed series of suggestions and queries regarding physicid geography and statistics which Mr Silver issues to his numerous correspondents in all parts of the world where commercial relations have been established.”