a quarter of a mile from the seashore. This is the well which W. M. Jones (1942, p. 78B) cited as having struck rock at 400 feet, but the log says that a depth of 498 feet was reached without striking any. The record indicates that a total of 163 feet was in gravel, the thickest bed being 73 feet, and the remainder in sand and clay. On comparing this with the record of the Fisherman's Flat well it appears that the amount of gravel is substantially greater, but even this does not approach the proportion encountered in a deep well further north at Kaiapoi (Speight, op. cit., p. 430 and Plate 13), where the record is almost entirely of gravel. These cases are cited to show the presence of thick beds of gravel close to the present shoreline and presumably extending there-from under the sea-bed as it exists at present. But thick beds of gravel must have been laid down on a land surface or close to its margin, and thus their presence right up to the seashore supports to some extent the former extension of the land to the east. The extension of the volcanic rock beneath the present alluvial deposits of the Canterbury Plains is also proved by the geophysical survey carried out by W. M. Jones (op. cit. pp. 78B–79B, and Map), which indicates its presence beneath the land surface in the Halswell district and its extension for 4 or 5 miles towards Hornby; no estimate of its depth is given. The occurrence near Halswell is confirmed by the logs of two wells which record the presence of scoria and hard rock about half a mile from the base of the hills and at depths of 182 and 155 feet. The records of the wells round the fringe of the hills extending from Redcliffs, past Heathcote. Valley to Gebbies Valley, all only a few feet above present sea-level, indicate that a surface of rock or scoria antedating some of the gravels of the plains exists far below tide mark, the maximum recorded to date being 700 feet in the case of the Heathcote well. The presence of a former land surface receives confirmation in some sense from the presence of peat recorded in other wells of the Christchurch area at depths ranging down to 450 feet. It is unfortunate that the only records of the depth of alluvial deposits within the coastal periphery are those furnished by two wells sunk at Teddington, at the head of Lyttelton Harbour, where a considerable area of flat land lies at sea-level and just above it. The records, such as they are, have been cited by Page and Prideaux (1901, pp. 335–6) on the authority of the well-sinker, who states that “the wells pass through clay, freestone rock, and in one case rubble, but no shingle”; their depths are given as 95 and 177 feet. The reported occurrence of freestone may indicate that the bore penetrated Charteris Bay Sandstone, though no exposures of this rock appear either on the flat or on the hills in close proximity to the sites of the wells. Owing to the uncertainty in this respect the value of the inferences as to the depth of silting within the harbour limits is much reduced. But Mr Orton Bradley, of Charteris Bay, a resident of long standing, and very interested in such matters, tells me that the 95-foot well passed through mud containing shells and resembling the present deposit at the head of the harbour. His