1867.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 113 



and that remnants of every creation or nearly every creation, from the 

 Permian era down, are left to shew what the earth was." New Zealand 

 and Norfolk Island are especially cited as being a surviving rem- 

 nant of the carboniferous epoch, or of a time immediately succeeding 

 it. This is shewn by their monocotyledonous plants, palms, cycadee, 

 and tree ferns, by the absence of quadrupeds, by the birds, the highest 

 representatives of animal life, and by the fish in no way differing 

 from the fossil representatives of the carboniferous age. 



Australia appears to be the next oldest region ; it has a fauna and 

 flora distinct from that of New Zealand, and representatives of them 

 are found in the European tertiary rocks. It contains no rocks of 

 secondary age. The author considers that the causes of the differences 

 from the fauna and flora of New Zealand are not explicable by the 

 Darwinian theory, but that they must have been a new creation, 

 which is now dying out before the animals and plants introduced by 

 the white man. A similar distinction may be traced in America, 

 Africa, the Malay land and Mongolia. Lastly comes the country of 

 the Caucasian, resting upon the nummulitic rocks. Its upheaval 

 wasted the previously divided Malay land, Africa and Mongolia, but 

 it contains a fauna and flora distinct from those countries. The 

 author states that the place of the nummulitic formation is not 

 precisely determined, but that he is inclined to consider it a coast 

 formation, contemporaneous with the chalk, a deep sea deposit. 



The several types of man each occupy an area, corresponding to 

 the different geological and botanical provinces, and the author thinks 

 it improbable that he is not part of the same original creation. He 

 points out, as a remarkable coincidence, that the race peopling every 

 geologically newer region, is higher in the scale than the race of the 

 next older region. The New Zealander is an exception, as the 

 country appears to have been peopled by a Malay colony. 



Mr. Ormsby said that he thought most of the facts brought forward 

 by Mr. Amery had been known for a very considerable time. The idea 

 of the organic remains in certain geologic formations in one part of 

 the world being represented by the living flora and fauna of another 

 is by no means new. Professor Owen, in his " Paleontology," (Ed. 

 1860, p. 307) compares the English oolite with Australia of the 

 present day. He concludes his arguments by saying that the 



