332 
required in support of such an hypothesis is, that the North and South Islands have been severed 
from each other for a sufficiently long period of time to allow of this complete divergence of character 
under the ordinary laws of natural development. And here we have the supporting testimony of 
Geology; for there is every indication in the structure of the two islands that their individual insula- 
tion dates back into far antiquity, and was probably coeval with that great convulsion of nature which 
in the remote past plunged under “ the azure main” the continent of which New Zealand and her 
satellites arc now the only existing remnants. 
