1848.] MANTELL ON FOSSIL REMAINS FROM NEW ZEALAND. 237 
all other existing reptiles, as are the extinct Iguanodon and Hyleo- 
saurus. The flora too contains more than a hundred plants unknown 
elsewhere. There is not a fauna or flora in any of the ancient geolo- 
gical periods that presents greater anomalies. Mr. Darwin emphati- 
cally remarks, that “‘when we consider the well-beaten paths made 
by the thousands of huge tortoises with which these islands are 
traversed,—the many turtles,—the great warrens of the terrestrial 
Amblyrhynchi, and the groups of marine species basking on the 
coast-rocks of every island of this Archipelago,—we must admit that 
there is no other quarter of the world where the Order of Reptiles 
replaces the herbivorous mammalia in so extraordinary a manner. 
The geologist on hearing this will probably refer back his mind to 
those Secondary Epochs, when saurians, some herbivorous, some 
carnivorous, and of colossal dimensions, swarmed on the lands and in 
the seas. It is therefore worthy his especial observation that this 
Archipelago, instead of possessing a humid climate and a rank vege- 
tation, must be considered as extremely arid, and for an equatorial 
climate remarkably temperate *.”’ 
I have endeavoured to express in the annexed table the organic 
relations between the countries above-mentioned and their geological 
analogues. 
Mopern Epocu. SECONDARY Epocus. 
New Zealand. 
Predominance of Ferns, Lycopodiacez 
and other Cryptogamia. Gigantic 
Countries of the Carboniferous and Tri- 
assic periods as indicated by fossil re- 
Birds. Mammalia absent. Saree 
Australia. The lands whence the Stonesfield and 
Cycadeaceous Plants. Marsupial Mam- Carboniferous oolitic strata were de- 
malia. rived. 
The Galapagos Islands. The country of the Iguanodon, and the 
Predominance of Reptiles. Herbivo- regions that supplied the detritus that 
rous, terrestrial and marine Saurians formed the fluvio-marine secondary 
and Chelonians. strata. 
In this point of view the “‘ Age of Reptiles’’ may be considered as 
merely disclosing an exaggerated effect of the’ organic law of creation, 
which imparted to the fauna of the Galapagos Islands its reptilian 
character. In Australia, and in the Oolitic lands, the mammalian 
fauna assumed the marsupial type. In New Zealand, and in the 
Triassic countries, the ornithic vertebrata predominated. 
If the ancient philosophers, ere the discoveries of Columbus had 
opened the New World to the European mind, had found in a fossil 
state such collocations of the remains of animals and plants as are 
presented by New Zealand, Australia, and the Galapagos Islands, how 
impossible would it have been for them, by any comparison with 
existing nature within their circumscribed geographical boundary, to 
have conceived the possibility of such assemblages of animated beings 
existing contemporaneously with themselves! In fact, the present. 
geographical distribution of peculiar types of terrestrial animals and 
plants, affords as many anomalies in the relative predominance of 
different classes and orders, as are to be found in the vestiges of the 
earlier ages of our planet. 
* ¢ Journal of a Voyage round the World,’ chap. xvii. 
