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A Preliminary Note on the Fossil Plants of the Mount Potts Beds, 

 New Zealand, Collected by Mr. D. G. Lillie, Biologist to 

 Captain Scott's Antarctic Expedition in the " Terra Nova." 



By E. A. Newell Arber, M.A., Sc.D., F.G.S., F.L.S., Trinity College, 

 Cambridge, University Demonstrator in Paleobotany. 



(Communicated by Prof. T. McKenny Hughes, F.R.S. Eeceived February 17, — 



Read March 6, 1913.) 



[Plates 7 and 8.] 



In the present communication, I propose to discuss very briefly the first 

 fruits, which have reached this country, of Captain Scott's Second Antarctic 

 Expedition (1910-13). A full account of the fossil flora in question must 

 be reserved for a future occasion. At present I have only permission to 

 contribute a preliminary note on the subject. 



It is well known that, during the winter months of the last two years, the 

 " Terra Nova," the ship of Captain Scott's Second Antarctic Expedition, 

 has been actively engaged in furthering scientific researches in New Zealand 

 waters, returning, however, to the Antarctic each summer. My friend, 

 Mr. D. G-. Lillie, B.A., of St. John's College, Cambridge, one of the biologists 

 of Captain Scott's Scientific Staff, who has been attached throughout to the 

 " Terra Nova," has been busily occupied with various researches, partly 

 biological and partly geological. During the short periods when he has 

 been free to proceed with geological work, he has set himself the task of 

 trying to clear up some of the doubtful points, which remain unsolved, in 

 regard to the stratigraphical geology of New Zealand, more especially by 

 means of the fossil floras of the rocks in question. As is well known, the 

 precise geological age of many subdivisions of the stratigraphical sequence 

 of these islands remains in doubt, and in some cases these questions have 

 been matters of keen dispute in the past as at the present time. Among 

 them, none has given rise to greater controversy than the doubt which has 

 existed as to the precise geological age of the plant beds of Mount Potts, 

 in Ashburton County, Canterbury. Do these beds contain Glossopteris, and 

 perhaps a typical Permo-Carboniferous Glossopteris flora ? Did New 

 Zealand, as one would expect, in Permo-Carboniferous times form part of 

 the great Southern continent, " Gondwanaland," the home of the Glossopteris 

 flora, like the greater part of Australia, South Africa, and South America ? 

 These are the questions as yet in doubt. If, on the other hand, New 

 Zealand, in Permo-Carboniferous times, formed no part of Gondwanaland, 



