COMPARED WITH THOSE OF AUSTRALIA. 67 
tertiary strata are perhaps equally well developed, and the dis- 
i facies of each oe fauna is discernible as early 
as the eocene formations. upper mesozoic ee are very 
imperfectly represented in Proven but have enormous develop- 
ment in New Zealand, in which country, as in Pre the tertiary 
facies of the fauna and flora springs from a shore line and land 
surface of pre-cretaceous see This is the period of the chief coal 
deposits in New Zealan 
But it is in the lower mesozoic period that the greatest divergence 
in the character of the deposits prevailed in the several areas. 
In sc omiaered marine J Rtas formations, which can be deter- 
ir fossils, are not extensively developed, while the 
shiltkcteristic rie of the trias has not yet been detected ; fossil 
plants, which are most uncertain guides, being alone found i in the 
strata which must be referred to that peri riod. In. New w Zealand, 
of the marine ——- 
A 
on the other hand, the three mem mbers 
is followed in New Zealand by a gap, and the next formation, 
which is lower carboniferous and upper devonian, is the latest for- 
mation according to our present evidence, which appears to have 
n common to ‘Anetea! lia and New Zealand, and to have been 
deposited in both areas _under +6 same oe conditions and 
Occur at intervals, interstratified with the marine strata 0 
New Zealand, sacl may be perhaps yet employed successfully as 
indications of relative e age. 
This would be a most useful labour, as the strata concerning the 
age of which there is so much uncertainty, are of the highest 
ecunbntic et ce in Australia and India, from their containing 
with that of corres aaa e in pee and age the - 1 wer 
plant beds of er dng ge and Permian age have only yielded 
— in a bad state of tion. The following attempt 
bular i 
, and is only the reading of the Australian record from the 
é 
