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Geology of the Provinces of Canterbury and Westland, New Zealand : a report comprising the results of official explorations

A Visit to Glenmark, and Heavy Floods, End of July and Beginning of August, 1867

A Visit to Glenmark, and Heavy Floods, End of July and Beginning of August, 1867.

Wishing to make some more excavations in Glenmark, I proceeded there, this time taking with me the late F. R. Fuller, taxidermist to the Museum, On arriving there on the afternoon of July 30th the sky looked very angry. During the night it began to rain very heavily, changing next morning to snow, which continued for two days, after which, a regular downpour of rain lasted for another day. The small creeks round the house rose ten to twelve feet above their usual level, and were now raging impassable torrents, destroying everything in their way. It will be still in the recollection of the inhabitants of the Province that the floods caused by these snowstorms and heavy rainfalls were the greatest ever experienced since the colonization of the country, and no similar disaster, where a considerable portion of the lower plains north of the Waimakariri stood under water, has since visited us. Eor several days, owing to the soaked state of the ground, we were unable to do anything in the turbary deposits, but afterwards, when we could begin work, we obtained a fine collection of bones of every hitherto known species. A similar interesting collection was made from the banks of the Grlenmark creek, where in the mean time we page 156had been making excavations. They amply confirmed previous observations that, during the Great Glacier period of New Zealand, the different genera of the Dinornithidœ had already been in existence, continuing to flourish to a comparatively recent period. Towards the middle of August we returned to Christchurch bringing a large and valuable collection of dinornithic remains with us. Museum and Geological Survey Work occupied me now for several months without interruption, and a discussion about the occurrence of a Glacial period in Australia, before the Royal Society of Victoria, induced me to address to that learned body a paper on the subject, in which I pointed out that without doubt ample signs of such glaciation would be found in the Australian Alps.*

Some more Moa skeletons were now, under my direction, articulated by Fuller, and a series of others, more or less complete, were prepared for exchange with foreign countries, by means of which the Canterbury Museum has received in the last eight years, and is still receiving, such valuable returns that it can fairly claim as to the variety and richness of its collections, to hold an honourable position amongst the Museums of the Southern Hemisphere. The tunnel works having in the meantime been completed, I was occupied for a number of nights in finishing the survey of this highly interesting section, and collecting a large series of specimens in illustration, during which the Railway Engineer, Mr. E. Dobson, C.E., and the contractors, Messrs. Holmes and Co., continued to give me most valuable and ready assistance.

* Notes on the Rev. J.E. Tennison Wood's paper "On the Glacial Epoch of Australia." By Julius Haast, Ph.D., F.R.S. Transactions of Royal Society of Victoria, Vol. VIII.