THE AGE OF NEW ZEALAND. 
445 
tion survives, is again rising, and will be eventually revealed 
but with superincumbent strata more nearly resembling the 
later formations of the northern ; that the cretaceous deposit 
which now is chiefly represented by the coral isles, will then 
appear as conspicuously as in the other hemisphere. 
There can be little doubt, therefore, however strange it 
may seem, that this Britain of the south, the last appendage 
of our empire, is, in a geological point of view, immeasurably 
older than the parent isle, and was in being long before — 
“ Britain arose from out the azure main.” 
NEW ZEALAND ADIANTUM RENEFORME, LIVING FERN. 
