HuTTON. — The Geological History of Neiv Zealand. 167 



Zealand no land plants or animals of the period by which we 

 could test the truth of this hypothesis. 



The land then sank and the Maitai system was deposited. 

 Towards the end of the Carboniferous period the New Zealand 

 area appears to have been under a deep ocean, but with shal- 

 lower water to the west and north-west, for in Tasmania and 

 Australia we find that the rocks, which were probably con- 

 temporaneous with our Maitai system, contain shallow-water 

 beds with plant remains ; while in New Zealand there is an 

 absence of conglomerates and of fossils generally. Perhaps, 

 also, we have direct evidence of deep-water conditions in our 

 deposits of manganese-ore and red-jasperoid slates. 



Probably it was early in the Permian period when eleva- 

 tion, with folding of the rocks, again took place ; and this was 

 accompanied by the intrusion of granite in the South Island 

 along the axis of the present New Zealand Alps. After a 

 long interval the granite was followed by a series of basic 

 volcanic eruptions, and the land began slowly to sink, and this 

 was continued "during the Triassic and the first half of the 

 Jurassic periods. During the whole of this long-continued 

 subsidence — while the rocks of the Hokanui system were 

 being laid down — land must have been in the close neigh- 

 bourhood, for in the rocks we find bands of conglomerates 

 and abundant vegetable remains. 



The sedimentary rocks of the Hokanui system have much 

 the same lithological characters throughout New Zealand, 

 ■and appear to have been chiefly the products of large rivers 

 vyhich drained a continent, and not the products of small 

 island streams ; so that probably New Zealand was then 

 placed near the coast-line of a large continent stretching 

 away to the north and west. Whether this land reached to 

 Tasmania and Australia we cannot say until the New Zealand 

 fossils have been compared with those of Australia ; but if it 

 be true that a Labyrinthodont lived on the banks of these 

 rivers a land-connection between Australia and New Zealand 

 must have existed. Certainly there is no evidence that the 

 Permo-triassic land was a mountainous region near New Zea- 

 land, for there are no signs of any deep local excavations 

 having taken place, such as would have been produced by 

 mountain streams, and no evidence has as yet been found of 

 the presence of Permo-triassic glaciers. 



About the middle of the Jurassic period folding of the 

 rocks again occurred along the same north-east and south- 

 west axis ; the Alps were formed, and the present land of New 

 Zealand may be said to have been born, for since then it has 

 never been submerged. Up to the present we know of no 

 igneous outbursts which accompanied this third folding. But 

 some of the granites along the West Coast — such as that 



