300 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
and some two hundred miles from the New Zealand shores. An 
uplift of twelve hundred feet would connect them with the main- 
land. There is a similar but narrower shoal west of New Zealand 
from which a long submarine ridge extends north by west for 
nearly two thousand miles toward New Guinea. This ridge is less 
than one thousand fathoms in depth. Between the New Zealand 
land mass and Australia the sea reaches a depth of over two 
thousand fathoms. 
Geologically, New Zealand is a continent in miniature. Though 
some of its rocks are very old there is little evidence of its having 
been a land above the sea before the Jurassic and Cretaceous per- 
iods. Since then the area has experienced elevations and sub- 
sidences, faulting and folding, mountain-making and vuleanism, 
erosion by waves, rivers and ice, all of which make a history 
whose complexity and interest approach that of the greater con- 
tinental units. Despite the prevailing opinion that the plant and 
animal life suggest a strong Australian affinity, the absence of the 
eucalypti and acacias among the plants and of the marsupials 
among the mammals oppose this hypothesis in part. The various 
theories based on geological and biological evidences regarding 
past land connections are many and complicated. Their discussion 
does not fall within the scope of this chapter. 
Auckland, the largest city of the Dominion, offered our first 
introduction to New Zealand. Together with its suburbs it has 
a population of fully 158,000. It is located at the head of Waite- 
mata harbor whose mouth is guarded by the volcanic island, 
Rangitoto. Outside is Hauraki Gulf protected by Great Barrier 
island and the Coromandel peninsula. The topography permits 
the location of several beautifully situated suburbs among which 
are Devonport, Takapuna, and Birkenhead, the latter being the 
home of the plant of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company whose 
activities are so important in Fiji. Auckland proper is on a nar- 
row neck of land where North Island is nearly eut in two. 
Onehunga, one of the suburbs, is located on Manukau harbor on 
the opposite side of the isthmus. It is said that a canal could be 
readily constructed across the isthmus but for the fact that the 
tides on either side are not synchronous, and the result would be 
an irregular and disastrous ebb and flow in the canal. 
The much-indented coast-line of the harbor is due to the erosion 
of the region into ridges and broad valleys at a time when the 
