NEW ZEALAND CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5079, 4 July 1877, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE.

“Anglo-Australian ” in the European Mail sa y s ;—.“ Everything is fish that comes to the net of science, and though a man may not be able to be present in propria persorue at the meetings of our savans, for the very sufficient reason that he cannot well be at the antipodes and in London at one and the same time, it must be gratifying to him as a searcher after truth to find that his thoughts, or rather the work of his mind, can be breathed through a secondary medium for the benefit of science and the world generally. This is a view which ought to be "very acceptable to scientific students in our colonies, and which ought to encourage thim in their researches. As an instance in point, I may mention that the Geological Society;-: of London were recently engaged in discussing a paper—by Mr, John I). Bays—“ On Sand-worn Stones from New Zealand.” There is an analogy between sand-worn stones “ and the footprints of time” which affords ample food for reflection. Well, 7 there was a very good gathering on the occasion referred to, and some sand-worn pebbles gathered near Wellington (New Zealand) were exhibited. , According to the author, they are fontad on an isthmus rising but little above the sea, and ah our a mile'' wide, and having on each side r. line of low sand hills, separated by a flat spice of clayey, sand, on which the stones rest. ' , The isthmus, seporates two bays, on each' side of which the' ground is high, and hence the prevailing winds (which are north-west and south-east) blow across the ithmus with considerable force, and carry with them a cloud of sand, which, ou a windy day, forms a dense mass, reiching'about to the knees of a person walking over the ground. The passage of this moving sand over the stones or pebbles lying on the surface wears th cm away so as to give them sloping sides, and even to bring them to an, angle or ridge running along tho upper surface, the direction of the longer axis of the stone with respect to the prevailing wind governing the particular form assumed by the worn stone. When veins of harder material occur in the stones, these areleft projecting from the surface, and are sometimes even uuderout. Professor Ramsay agreed with the author in his explanation of the mode of shaping of the stones." He remarked that in England there arebumerods examples of Eolian action, which also occur in Egypt on a. very large scale, level strata being in the latter country marked with . grooves deeply ploughed by’ blown sand. As an English example—he instanced the singular crags on the top of Kinder Scout. -This forms part of a great tableland in lower carboniferous' rooks, and upon it are club-shaped and mush-’ room-like pillars of sandstone, the formation of which has ■ often been ascribed, wrongly . in Professor Ramsay’s opinion, to marine de : nndation. He stated that in the neighborhood of these curious crags ‘ there ■ isplenty of loose land, and this having been blown with great force against the bases of the pillars, has cut them away into their present ■fantastic forms. Mr. John Evans referred to various examples of stones polished by blown sand occurring in this country. Professor Boyd Dawkins remarked that if we wanted" evidence of the erosive power of blown sand we had only to consider the effects of the sandblast now so commonly used for the purpose ofetching designs upon glass. He also: cited ■examples in the African deserts of stones polished by the natural sand-blast." He stated, however, that bo did not agree with Professor Ramsay 1 with respect to the origin of the crags on Kinder Scout, which, he remarked, is a wet locality, whilst, in order that it may cut, the sand must be dry. The shap-' ing of these peculiar crags' was in his opinion due to the unequal weathering of rocks consisting of portions of unequal roughness. ■ Now one would hardly think that so much that is suggestive could have been elaborated out of a few pebbles from New Zealand. The thought hero to he caught is that nothing is too insignificant for the field of science, and that our colonics can do much to promote its development. i,

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