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THE AGE OE NEW ZEALAND. 
1. That man, in fact, in those regions, stands on a more 
ancient platform, and is surrounded by far more ancient 
forms of animal and vegetable life, than even his grand pro- 
genitor Adam did at his creation. 
2. That New Zealand is probably the oldest surface of 
our planet remaining, still preserving with little change its 
primaeval condition, from not having been submerged with 
the rest of the grand southern continent. 
3. That Australia, at a later period, was severed from the 
Asiatic continent, and still possesses the peculiar flora and 
fauna belonging to the period following the convulsion which 
separated it from New Zealand. 
4. That still later America was severed from the remain- 
ing portion of the southern continent, as well as Africa, each 
preserving the flora and fauna of a later period, and so 
severally presenting as many steps of ascent from the lowest 
floor of the earth's ancient surface to its most recent one, from 
the liassic age up to the one we live in, and that these enable 
us to see, in actual existence, what is only elsewhere to be 
found in a fossil state. 
5. That these steps form a geological flight of stairs, 
which connect one of the lowest with the highest, or, in 
other words, one of the oldest with the most recent plat- 
form of the earth. The first and lowest step being New 
Zealand, and some of the neighbouring isles, with their 
wingless birds; next Australia, with its marsupial races, 
serpents, and saurians ; then America, with its sloths, tapirs, 
and armadillos ; then Africa and Asia, with their elephants, 
hippopotami, rhinoceroses, giraffes, &c. ; and lastly Europe, 
with its familiar families of creatures, over which man presides. 
6. That animal and botanic centres are to be viewed as 
epochs of creation, originally of the widest distribution, and 
probably commensurate in extent with the earth’s surface. 
7. That these several surfaces preserve the peculiar 
conditions of each, which by subsequent convulsions have 
disappeared from other parts ; that whilst many grand links 
in the chain of nature may have been lost, these still remain. 
8. That the southern continent, of w r hich so small a por- 
