THE AGE OE NEW ZEALAND. 
437 
flora of the Eocene period bore the character of the present 
Australian. Amongst the common fossils of Sotzka and 
Haring are the branches of a coniferous plant, which has 
its exact counterpart in the genus Araucaria, exclusively 
belonging to the southern hemisphere ; New Holland and 
Norfolk Island possessing five species. Amongst the fossil 
FOSSIL FERN, DUDLEY. 
oaks of the Eocene is one with the type peculiar to the 
Javanese ones of the present day, and the dwarf beeches of 
Tierra del Euego, Chili, Tasmania and New Zealand are also 
found in the Eocene. 
“ Hence at the Eocene period Europe must have had a 
climate like that of New Holland at the present day, and 
their lands must have been connected. 
“We know that every species was originally confined to 
a more or less circumscribed space, whence it spread cen- 
trifugally; at present a considerable number of European 
plants grow in New Holland ; to explain this indentity of 
species in the Polynesian Isles and Australia we must assume 
a continental connection. 
