ANNIVEESAEY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XCV 



and is carried more towards Goat Island and the centre of th e horse- 

 shoe ; from which he concludes that the retrograde movement of the 

 Canadian fall will be more and more accelerated ; that the valley of 

 denudation of the river will approach Goat Island, and will then turn 

 to the east with an abrupt angle as at the whirlpool, and that an- 

 other whirlpool will be formed at the very spot where the Canadian 

 fall is now placed. 



He concludes his paper with some remarks respecting the strati- 

 graphical relations of the rocks through which the river flows above 

 and below the falls. 



Amongst the more important works which deserve notice on an occa- 

 sion hke the present, I must not omit the ' Geological Description of 

 New Zealand,' by Dr. Hochstetter, who, as geologist, accompanied 

 the expedition of the Austrian frigate ' ISTovara ' round the world. 

 The work consists of a large quarto volume in two parts, the first of 

 which is called ' The Geology of New Zealand,' the second ' The Pa- 

 laeontology of New Zealand.' In the very interesting introduction to 

 this work Dr. Hochstetter shows that the three islands belong to one 

 and the same system, marked by a characteristic line of elevation 

 from S.W. to N.E. interrupted by Cook's Straits between the two 

 principal islands. This mountain -chain of true alpine character forms 

 the backbone of the islands, and is said to consist of zones of strati- 

 fied and unstratified mountain-masses of difi'erent ages, which have 

 been raised by plutonic action. It is accompanied, in the northern 

 island at its western base, and in the southern island at its 

 eastern base, by zones of volcanic rocks, which have been affected 

 down to the latest periods by deep-seated igneous action. The lofty 

 formations of the volcanic zones, and new Tertiary and Quaternary 

 sedimentary deposits, have given to these islands their present form; 

 which is, however, even now undergoing constant changes, both from 

 earthquakes and from still continuing elevations and depressions. 

 The geological maps of these islands, even in their still imperfect state, 

 as compared with the detailed geological maps of western Europe, 

 show a very great variety of formations ; and although it may not 

 yet be possible to establish an exact parallelism between them and 

 the order of formations in Europe, there is already sufficient evidence 

 to prove that the stratified rocks of Europe have here their represen- 

 tatives from the oldest metamorphic formations to the newest sedi- 

 mentary deposits, and that the eruptive formations extend from the 

 oldest plutonic rocks to the most recent volcanic lavas. 



He considers that New Zealand, with its peculiar living fauna and 

 flora, differing so completely from the neighbouring regions of Australia, 

 the South- Sea Islands, and South America, is admirably adapted for 

 testing the correctness of the theory of Professor Agassiz, that no 

 specific identity can be shown between animals living at a great dis- 

 tance from each other, even when they existed contemporaneously ; 

 but that rather genera of the same family, even when belonging to 

 different geological periods, are more closely allied to each other when 

 they belong to the same latitudes than those of the same geological 

 age, but which are derived from different geographical zones. 



