88 



problem in geology, which had never been, to my mind, satisfactorily solved 

 by the greatest geologists who have written on the subject. Mr. A. W. 

 Howitt, and I, with a black boy of the age above-mentioned, had made a two days' 

 jouxmey on horseback, from the last known water, without finding any more, 

 and had we gone on further our horses would probably have been unable to 

 return. We were much in want of water, and had camped for the night in 

 the midst of a great many dried-up water-holes, with a few Salt-bushes gro wing- 

 on their margins, intending to turn next morning. 



I noticed the boy examining the dry surface of the water-holes, and went 

 to see what he was doing. He pointed out an indistinct and crooked mark, 

 on what had once been the mud, and following it to where it apparently ceased, 

 in the shade of a small Salt-bush, he began to dig with a sharp stick, and in a 

 short time turned out a ball of clay about eight inches in diameter, and quite 

 dry outside, which, when broken, disclosed a frog shut up in a beautifully 

 puddled cell, with more than half-a-pint of fine, clear, cold water. We 

 after wards dug out many others, drinking the water, and eating the frogs. A 

 sudden or gradual deposition of matter over such ground, would have shut up 

 those frogs for ever, and if they live through months and even years, in such a 

 situation, within range of the effects of a scorching sun, we can understand how 

 they have lived for ages in the cool and moist recesses of the rocks in which 

 they are sometimes found. The theory of living frogs getting accidentally 

 buried in accumulating mud or sand, if examined, will not stand good, for the 

 compression to which such rocks are sometimes afterwards subjected, would 

 certainly kill them ; while the cells, in which I have seen them, would stand 

 compression to half their original bulk, without materially affecting the 

 animal. 



II. — B O T AN Y. 



Art. XIV. — On some new species of New Zealand Plants. By John 

 Buchanan, of the Geological Survey Department. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, November 13, 1869.] 



Ozothamnus lanceolatus, Buchanan, n. sp. 



A small shrub, 2-4 feet high ; branches slender, tomentose at the tips, 

 grooved. Leaves, 1 1 inches long, narrow, alternate, lanceolate, slightly waved 

 on the margins, entire or obscurely crenate, white and cottony beneath, finely 

 reticulated on the upper surface, spathulate or contracted into a winged petiole 

 -| inch long. Heads in small, lateral, peduncled corymbs, involucral scales, 

 scarious, woolly at the base, pappus hairs thickened at the tip. Achene 

 glabrous. 



Allied to Ozothamnus glomeratus, but easily distinguished by the lanceolate 

 leaves and glabrous achene. Habitat, mountains of Hokianga 2000-3000 feet 

 alt. Collected by Mr. J. Buchanan. 



Geum uniflorum, Buchanan, n. sp. 



A small herb, 6-8 inches high ; rhizome, prostrate, stout, woody. Leaves 

 1|— 2 inches long, pinnate ; leaflets, one pair, very small, crenate ; terminal 

 leaflet, reniform, 1 inch broad, obtusely crenate, nearly glabrous on both 

 surfaces, but with a marginal row of pencils of stiff orange hairs on the edges 

 of the crenatures. Flower, large, 1-1 j inches dia., white, terminal on a 



