BY CAPTAIN F. W. BUTTON. 41 



and early Tertiary times of a strip of land extending from S. 

 America across the pole to Tasmania; New Zealand, in Tertiary 

 times, reaching near this antarctic land without joining it. And 

 in " Natural Science " he had a paper " On the Relations of the 

 Fauna and Flora of Australia to those of New Zealand," in which 

 he supports the idea of an ancient continent, or " Melanesian 

 Plateau,"* which included the Solomon Islands, Fiji, New 

 Hebrides, New Caledonia, Lord Howe Island and New Zealand, 

 but was separated from Australia and New Guinea. No date is 

 given to this island-continent, but it is supposed to be later than 

 the "Australian Tertiary and Mesozoic beds": later, therefore, 

 than the Antarctic land. 



In 1895, Mr. Hedley returned to the subject in a paper to the 

 Royal Society of N.S.W. called "Considerations on the surviving 

 Refugees in Austral Lands of ancient Antarctic Life." Here he 

 advocates an Antarctic continent, which was a very unstable area, 

 " at one time dissolving into an archipelago, at another resolving 

 itself into a continent." He thinks that snakes, frogs, monotremes 

 and marsupials passed across this continent, from S. America to 

 Tasmania, during a warm, Mid-tertiary period. He also now 

 thinks that the southward extension of New Zealand, mentioned 

 in his former paper, was synchronous with its northern extension 

 to the Melanesian plateau; that is, it was late instead of early 

 Tertiaiy date. 



This short historical sketch will, I think, make it clear that a 

 considerable amount of ingenuity has been expended in trying to 

 solve the interesting problem of the distribution of southern 

 faunas. The differences of opinion are due partly to some of the 

 authors having taken only a small number of the known facts 

 into consideration, and partly to constant additions to our know- 

 ledge; either by the discovery of new facts, or by the correction 

 of old errors. No doubt our knowledge will still increase, but it 

 seems hardly possible to make any more theories. The problem 

 is a very intricate one, and we may be sure that the true solution 

 is not simple. 



* Called Antipodea by Dr. Forbes. 



