OLD NEW ZEALAND.

Waipawa Mail, Volume I, Issue 30, 25 December 1878, Page 2

OLD NEW ZEALAND.

The New Zealand Times makes the f«)|. lowing interesting observations: “Sir Roderick Murchison aptly 7 said that gtclogy 7 is the study 7 of the geography of the. past. The geologist discovers the sites of ancient lakes, of pleistocene rivers, traces the course of moraines and scratched boulders—clear proof of ice action. When our geological staff have still further worked out the geology of these islands, they will be able to tell us much of that past geography 7, will be able to restore for us the vast continent of which New Zealand, the Chatham, Auckland, and other islands are the remaining fragments. They will be able to point out the site of ancient lakes, of long extinct craters, and to tell us whether Cook’s Strait was or was not the site of an ancient mighty river. Already they have told us much of the past of these islands. Far south, in cold, wintry Otago, they found kauri leaves—positive evidence that the climate there was far warmer than now 7 , for the delicate Dammara Australis cannot live far south of Auckland. The geologist* tell us that oaks were once plentifiil in New Zealand, though now none exist. No one knows why they disappeared. New Zealand geology upsets many of the propositions founded on European geology, and greatly widens the geological horizon. In New Zealand, dicotyledonous plants appear in ancient strata, in which, according to European geologists, they are never found. N mv Zealand is really an old country 7 , some of its strata being almost as ancient as any 7 that have been found in the so-called Old World.”