14 Dendv, The Chatham Islands. 



telegraph posts, and a buoy from Wellington, have been 

 conveyed to these islands in the same way. I also learned 

 that though there is no totara {Podocarpiis totara, a 

 common New Zealand forest pine) growing on the island, 

 yet good-sized totara trees, apparently drift timber, are 

 found buried, sometimes beneath peat, near the sea, at 

 several localities. 



There can, I think, be little question that Geoplana 

 exidans, and perhaps many other small invertebrate 

 animals, were introduced to the Chathams from New 

 Zealand by means of floating timber in the manner thus 

 clearly indicated. 



Origin of the Fauna and Flora. 



All who have studied the question are agreed that 

 the fauna and flora of the Chatham Islands are simply 

 isolated detachments of those of New Zealand, although 

 the striking differences which we have had occasion to 

 notice imply a long period of isolation. This view of the 

 case requires us to believe that the islands, though now 

 separated by 400 miles of open ocean, were at one time 

 either actually connected with the New Zealand main- 

 land, or, at any rate, much more nearly so than at the 

 present day, a belief which is strongly supported by the 

 fact that the sea between New Zealand and the Chathams 

 is comparatively shallow, only from 500 to 1,000 metres 

 in depth, while further to the east it sinks at once to 

 4,500 metres (Diels). In the upper Pliocene period it is 

 probable that the area of New Zealand was greatly 

 extended so as to embrace, for example, Chatham Island in 

 the east, Lord Howe Island in the north-west, Auckland 

 and Campbell Islands in the south. The immense area 

 of land thus formed has been styled b}' Diels "Great 

 New Zealand," and corresponds more or less to Wallace's 



