PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1307 



Pleistocene, or great rain-fall period. Then, again, the "pouched hyaena" (Tkylacinus), and 

 the Sarcopkilns, or "devil," whose bones are found plentifully in the Pleistocene deposits in 

 the Wellington Caves, have become extinct in Australia, though they still live in Tasmania. 

 Why the indigenous mammals of Australia belong chiefly to the Marsupialia, while this 

 low order of mammalia became extinct in Europe in ages far back ; and why our living 

 vegetation possesses certain ancient forms, geology is beginning to reveal we say is beginning, 

 for the little evidence already obtained indicates the wide field that yet awaits 

 geological research. 



Moreover, the occurrence of the above-named animals being common both to Australia 

 and Tasmania, points to the former land connection of these colonies at no distant date. 

 During the Miocene period they were separated by water much wider than the existing 

 Bass's Straits ; for, on the southern coast of Australia, and for a -considerable distance 

 inland, and on the opposite or northern coast of Tasmania, are formations several 

 hundred feet in thickness, composed of horizontal strata full of Miocene marine shells 

 and corals. The upheaval of these strata, to a height of at least six hundred feet above 

 the sea, took place during, or at the close of, the Pliocene period, and this elevated sea- 

 bottom became dry land, uniting Tasmania to the Continent, and affording a passage for 

 the Pleistocene animals, until, either by denudation or volcanic disturbance, some of the 

 newly-made land gradually disappeared, and the inroad of the sea formed Bass's Straits, 

 and Tasmania once more became an island. 



Beneath the marine and Miocene strata, which are seen in the cliffs on the Cape 

 Otway coast, are fresh-water plant-bearing beds. These would indicate a previous eleva- 

 tion of the land in pre-Miocene times. As the great Cretaceous formation of Australia 

 is not known to the east of Spencer Gulf, it is probable that this portion of the 

 Continent was high land, and connected with Tasmania in the Cretaceous period. From 

 this high land may have descended the glacier which produced the polished and ice- 

 scratched rock surfaces discovered by Professor Tate on the coast near Adelaide. While 

 the geology of Tasmania has much in common with that of Australia, New Zealand 



* 



possesses a geological interest of her own. Its recent volcanic phenomena, its magnificent 

 glaciated mountains, the remarkable disturbances of its Tertiary strata, and the large 

 development of its Mesozoic formations, contribute greatly towards the completion of the 

 geological record of Australia. Indeed, while in Australia and Tasmania the Palaeozoic 

 formations are largely developed, in New Zealand the Mesozoic and succeeding forma- 

 tions, including the Recent, are very completely represented ; and the whole series are so 

 united by a commingling of their fossil remains, that it is at times difficult to assign 

 the limits of the different formations ; in fact, the geological record of this portion of the 

 earth represents one continuous life period. 



Sir James Hector, M.D., F.R.S., Director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand, 

 writes " New Zealand presents a peculiar feature on the surface of -the globe, as, not- 

 withstanding its isolated position, its structure is highly complicated, in which respect it 

 differs from that of most of the oceanic islands. It is, in fact, the remnant of a large 

 continent, which, formerly existing far to the eastward, has been reduced in area by the 

 erosive; action of the sea. There is reason to believe, from consideration of the existing 

 and extinct fauna and flora, that the continent of which it formed part may have been 



