CocKBimx-HooD, — Xeiv Zealand a Post-fihinal Ct'iiiir of Creadon. 15 



the enormous length of time they have occupied it, not the shghtest attempt 

 of divergence is manifested, and apparently as during the untold ages of 

 the secondary era, they are destined to remain in statu quo, so long as the 

 present circumstances obtain. It seems as unsafe to hazard any theory 

 upon their inferiority and adaptability to vary as upon beauty being due 

 to sexual selection, seeing that the most perfect beauty is possessed by 

 certain organic forms which have no organs of perception at all. 



The disastrous effects of the ravages of insects in the vegetable world 

 are familiar, and the power of the canker-worm and the palmer-worm to 

 change the character and climate of extensive regions is not a modern 

 discovery. Forests of mighty trees that have withstood the battle and the 

 breeze of centuries, whose hardihood and tenacity of life is great enough to 

 enable them to survive the scorchuig and charring of their trunks by the 

 fires that sweep again and agam through the jungles, quickly succumb 

 under the repeated attacks of myriads of seemingly despicable foes. In 

 consequence of the extraordinary increase of a species of moth, innumer- 

 able armies of caterpillars for one or two consecutive seasons devoured the 

 leaves of the red gum-trees in the grand forests of Gippsland, amongst 

 the finest in New Holland, and now the weird skeletons of these, the 

 loftiest trees, some of them, in the world, mar the landscape. For 

 another half century or more, they will remain as memorials of what was 

 once the condition of the shadeless plains, the extent of which men are 

 ruthlessly increasing daily, over which the winds coming off the sea, that 

 heretofore had kept this an AustraUan Eden, will cease to part with theu* 

 refreshing showers, as they once did over the " rain-bruiging " trees, and 

 will carry their burthen on to the cool mountain slopes. 



The upheaval of the central region of Australia has been alluded to. 

 The process goes on, and what is taking place in New Holland, New Zea- 

 land, South America, and doubtless in Antarctic regions may be perhaps 

 taken as evidence of the balance of weight becoming in favour of the 

 northern polar ones ; those who adopt this theory will deem it strength- 

 ened if instead of an open polar sea, it is found that they are covered with 

 ever growmg mountains of ice. 



The violence of the volcanic action in the far south is felt in the con- 

 vulsive throes that disturb distant places, and which cause ever and anon a 

 more rapid'flow of the great covering of ice, sending off vaster streams of 

 bergs than during periods of rest. The earthquake waves which notified 

 the disturbance in 1868, were certainly followed by such a fleet. 



It may be said that a considerable portion of Scandinavia is also rising; 

 this may be a local consequence of the subsidence of a parallel belt of 

 the adjacent ocean bottom, a meridional folding of the crust of the earth, as 

 Mr, Campbell suggests. 



