94 GEOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS. [PART I. 



the subject is very abstruse, but we need not, there- 

 fore, shun inquiry altogether. If a land-bird, which 

 has no sustained power of flight, is met with in two 

 island groups, the Chatham Islands and New Zea- 

 land ; or if the Apterix australis, which has no 

 power of flying whatever, is found in the small 

 Barrier Island near the coast of New Zealand, and 

 in New Zealand itself; are we not justified in look- 

 ing to the geological structures for indications of a 

 former connection of these islands with New Zea- 

 land, which assuredly is the centre of certain pecu- 

 liar animals and plants ? but it would be theorising 

 too far were we to consider each of the little neigh- 

 bouring islands as a similar centre, or to attribute 

 to a miraculous accident the distribution of animals 

 which, from their very configuration, are precluded 

 from transmarine migration. 



Is it not possible, nay, very probable, that a phy- 

 sical revolution has broken apart what was formerly 

 connected, and that this event destroyed the path 

 on which alone such migration was possible ? I 

 find no objection, either in the geological structure 

 or in the plants or animals, to the theory that a 

 chain of islands was formerly connected with New 

 Zealand ; and there is every probability that the 

 continent of which New Zealand, Chatham Island, 

 and Norfolk Island are the ruins and fragments, 

 formerly occupied a very large space. According 

 to the accounts of whalers, there is now very little 

 depth of water between Chatham Island and New 



