north-west there was the Continent of Australia, with vast mountain-ranges covered with snow, and with glaciers glittering in every valley.

This state of things lasted into the Permian period, by which time the bed of the ocean had been gradually raised, so that the sea became shallow, and the New Zealand area lay near the shore-line of a continent stretching away towards Tasmania and Australia, to which, perhaps, it was joined. This land was covered with ferns and Cycads, and probably there were a number of active volcanoes ejecting rhyolitic lavas. But what animals lived on the land we do not, as yet, know.

In the middle of the Jurassic period came a violent upheaval. The rocks were crumpled up, the coast-line was changed into a mountain-range, and the land between it and Australia sank, forming the Tasman Sea. The new land, which we may now call New Zealand, for it has never since been entirely covered by the sea, extended in a westerly direction to at least twice its present breadth, and to the north it joined New Caledonia and New Guinea, which at that time probably formed part of a South Pacific continent. Plants and animals—including snails, worms, and insects, but no birds—came trooping down from the north to form the basis of our flora and fauna.

A long period followed, in which the western side of the mountains of the South Island were constantly being worn away by the heavy rains brought by cyclones sweeping over the Tasman Sea; but this did not take place to so great an extent in the north, for in those latitudes westerly winds are not so prevalent.

In the Upper Cretaceous the land subsided, and New Zealand was reduced to comparatively small limits. This land, however, supported many angiospermous trees, as well as gymnosperms, whose descendants are still living; while in our seas were marine reptiles and shells which have long since become extinct.

A little before the commencement of the Tertiary era the rocks were folded once more, the land rose again, and again it stretched far away to the north, but was not again united to New Guinea nor to northern Australia. A second invasion from the north followed, and quantities of plants of all descriptions, accompanied by animals—among which were many land-birds—migrated into New Zealand, and it is the descendants of this Eocene invasion which form the greater part of our present flora and fauna.

This was the last folding of rocks in New Zealand on an extensive scale, for all the younger rocks usually lie in the same position in which they were originally deposited, and

circle round the bases of hills formed by older rocks. Not only was the last touch given in the Eocene period to the internal structure of the mountains, but the chief valleys were also deeply scoured out, so that when the land sank again in the Oligocene period these valleys were filled up with marine limestones and other rocks.

The Oligocene and Miocene were periods of depression, separated by a slight upheaval which lasted only for a short time. During most of the Middle Tertiary era New Zealand must have formed a narrow ridge of land, very irregular in shape, running north-east and south-west, with some detached islands on each side, three or four on the south-east side, and a dozen or more to the north-west, none of them being very high above the sea.

In the older Pliocene came the last great upheaval. All the islands were joined together, and the land stretched away to the east and south so as to include the Chatham and Auckland Islands, as well, perhaps, as Campbell and Macquarie Islands; while to the north it certainly extended to the Kermadecs, and perhaps much further. On the mountains of the South Island large glaciers were formed; and the torrential rivers running from them tore into disconnected fragments the Miocene marine rocks which obstructed their valleys. Probably at this time more land than at present existed in the Antarctic Ocean, for New Zealand added to its flora and fauna many antarctic plants and marine animals. But this land could not have connected New Zealand with either Patagonia or South Africa, for if it had done so we should certainly have had many more immigrants, including land birds, and, probably, mammals.

It is possible that this large extension of land to the eastward may have produced desert or steppe-like conditions in a portion of New Zealand, evidence of which some botanists think they find in our flora; also, in the old lake at Kapua, near Waimate, there is some slight evidence of a dry epoch having, at that place, succeeded the diluvial epoch during which the moas were buried.^* But this may have been due to quite local causes.

Subsidence seems to have commenced first in the southern portion of the North Island, for in the newer Pliocene large portions of what are now dry land were under the sea, and Cook Strait had been formed. But at a later date sinking began in the South Island also, so that in the Pleistocene period the sea at Amuri Bluffstood at least 500 ft. higher than it does now. This sinking has again been followed by an elevation of all parts of New Zealand, the centre of the