1850.] MANTELL ON THE GEOLOGY OF NEW ZEALAND. 341 



durable remains of the most minute structures have been in as rapid 

 progress of formation at the Antipodes, as in Europe and America ; 

 and that among many familiar types there are, even in this "invi- 

 sible world of being," unknown forms of animal and vegetable ex- 

 istence. 



Lastly, the position of the Moa-bed at Waikouaiti has been cor- 

 rectly determined ; like that of Waingongoro in the North Island, it 

 is superimposed on the tertiary clay. Both these ossiferous deposits, 

 though but of yesterday in geological history, are of immense anti- 

 quity in relation to the human inhabitants of the coimtry. I believe 

 that ages ere the advent of the Maoris, New Zealand was densely 

 peopled by the stupendous bipeds whose fossil remains are the sole 

 indications of their former existence. 



The extreme freshness of the bones in no respect militates against 

 this supposition, for many of the skeletons of the most ancient ex- 

 tinct mammalia in Europe and America have undergone as little 

 change as the specimens before us. Thus Mr. Darwin remarks on 

 the fossil mammalia of the Pampas : " As far as I am aware, not one 

 of these animals perished, as was formerly supposed, in the marshes 

 or muddy river-beds of the present land ; their bones have simply 

 been exposed by the streams intersecting the subaqueous deposit in 

 which they were originally imbedded. The bones of the head (of the 

 Toxodon) are so fresh, that they contain a large per-centage of animal 

 matter, and when placed in a spirit-lamp burn with a bright flame*." 

 And Sir Charles Lyell, in commenting on the discovery of the skele- 

 ton of the Mastodon gig aniens dug up at Newburgh, observes, ''No- 

 thing is more remarkable than the large proportion of animal matter 

 in the tusks, teeth, and bones of many of these extinct mammalia, 

 amounting in some cases to 27 per cent. ; so that when all the earthy 

 ingredients are removed by acids, the form remains as perfect as in a 

 recent bone subjected to the same process. It would be rash to infer 

 from such data that these quadrupeds were mired at periods more 

 modern than the fossil elephants found imbedded in similar clayey 

 deposits in Europef ." 



From the great numbers of the largest species of Dinornis that 

 must formerly have existed, and the remarkable form and strength of 

 their thighs, legs, and feet, constituting powerful locomotive hmbs, 

 well-adapted for traversing extensive plains, it seems probable that 

 these stupendous terrestrial birds were not anciently confined within 

 the narrow limits of modern New Zealand, but ranged over a vast 

 continent, that is now submerged, and of which the Isles of the Pa- 

 cific are the culminating points. 



That the last of the species was exterminated by human agency, 

 like the Dodo and Solitaire of the Mauritius, and the gigantic Elk of 

 Ireland, there can be but little doubt ; but ere Man began the work 

 of destruction, it is not unphilosophical to assume that physical re- 

 volutions, inducing great changes in the relative distribution of the 

 land and water in the South Pacific Ocean, may have so circumscribed 



* Journal of a Naturalist, Edit. 1845, p. 155. 



t Sir C. Lyell's Travels in the United States, vol. ii. p. 265. 



