IC W. N. BENSON 



Later Cretaceous. — The earliest of the Notocene incursions of 

 the sea entered a small part of the northeastern portion of the 

 South Island in Middle Cretaceous times, flooding a very irregular 

 surface. Sixteen species of fossils have been recognized by Woods 

 in the deposits of this period, forms identical or allied with species 

 typical of the general Indo-Pacific fauna of the period. What 

 follows is not quite clear, but probably the sea retreated, and 

 entered again in late Cretaceous times, covering a much more 

 extensive area and submerging other portions of the northeast 

 and also in the southeast of the South Island and the east and 

 northern portions of the North Island. A much more extensive 

 fauna was introduced than before, over sixty species being known, 

 which, according to Woods, Trechmann, and Wilckens, are of the 

 typical Indo-Pacific Senonian types, with a particularly marked 

 affinity with the fauna of Southern America and Grahams Land. 

 Indeed, it seems as if we must conclude that New Zealand, Ant- 

 arctica, and South America lay, at the close of Cretaceous times, 

 on the coast of the South Pacific Ocean, involving the hj^pothesis 

 of a land connection at this period between these regions, a con- 

 clusion to which biologists have long tended.^ In some parts of 

 New Zealand the Senonian beds are followed by a great thickness 

 of almost unfossiliferous though partly foraminiferal limestone, 

 to which a Danian age has been assigned. This stage is, however, 

 missing from many districts. 



Eocene. — In "Eocene" times,^ the sea spread in certain regions, 

 but was missing from others. Three contrasted developments of 

 beds of this epoch may be noted. At this time were formed the 

 most valuable coal-measures in New Zealand, those in the north- 

 western portion of the South Island, the recent survey of which has 

 been in large part due to Morgan. The highlands adjacent to this 



^ There is very little affinity between the Cretaceous faunas of New Zealand and 

 Australia. 



^ The Lyellian terminology may perhaps be retained for the major subdivisions 

 of the Notocene period, but since we do not know the relative rate of evolution of new 

 marine forms in New Zealand and Europe, we cannot conclude that strata with like 

 percentages of Recent forms in the two regions are coeval, and hence the terms based 

 on such percentages can have but a local comparative value. For this reason the 

 convention is adopted of placing them between quotation marks. 



