30 The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. [Jan. 
Zealand, which lay on the coastal shelf, and was sometimes covered by 
sea-water and at other times raised slightly above the sea. In Permo- 
Carboniferous times (or, as seems more correct, Permian times) there was 
no land in the New Zealand area, though the fossils described from the 
Wairoa (Nelson) district by Mr. Trechmann indicate the presence of the 
coastal marine fauna which existed in that period in Australia. But there 
is no sign of the Permian flora in this country, so that we may suppose at 
this earlier period the sea extended farther to the west than in later times, 
and that New Zealand was then on the completely submerged marginal 
belt of the Australasian Continent. The probable north-easterly margin 
of this continental mass is drawn in accord with the line laid down by 
Dr. Marshall as the true boundary of the south-western Pacific, but the 
broad gulf which in Hedley’s and Neumayr’s charts stretched up from the 
south between Australia and New Zealand has been greatly reduced by 
Dr. Walkom, though its presence is indicated by the small mass of marine 
limestone that is interstatified with the Rhaetic plant-beds near Sydney. 
With this exception the lower Mesozoic beds of eastern Australia are 
entirely of fresh-water origin, but on the west coast of Western Australia 
the Jurassic plant-beds are associated with a series of marine rocks, the 
fossils of which may be compared with those of similar age on the Indian 
and East African coasts, affording one of the earliest indications by fossil 
evidence of the presence of the Indian Ocean. It is therefore in the New 
Zealand area .only that there is any possibility of correlating in detail the 
age of formations both by the plant-remains and the evidence of inter- 
stratified marine beds, and we shall look forward with the greater interest 
to the detailed investigation of the marine fossils of the Mesozoic formations 
of this land. 
The deposition of the Permian plant-beds, the Newcastle coal-measures 
of Australia, was followed by some crust-movement, and the oldest Mesozoic 
beds, which rest on these with some local unconformity, contain very few 
of the Permian forms, but are completely Mesozoic in aspect. These are 
the Narrabeen and Hawkesbury series of the Sydney district, which are 
probably of Lower Triassic age. Upon them rest, with slight uncon¬ 
formity, the Upper Triassic or Rhaetic Wiannamatta shales, with which are 
to be correlated the Ipswich coal-measures of Queensland. About the 
same age are the Mount Potts beds of the Canterbury district, the oldest 
well-investigated plant-beds in New Zealand,* while probably slightly newer 
Rhaetic or lowest Jurassic beds are found at the Clent Hills, in the Hokonui 
Hills at Makarewa and Hedgehope, and at Owaka Creek near the Catlin’s 
River. Common to all these are the forms Thinnfeldia odontopteroides, 
T. lancifolia, and Cladophlebis australis , “ that Mesozoic weed.” Baiera is 
represented by several species in the Australian occurrences and by one at 
Mount Potts, while Taeniopteris Daintreei, which occurs only at the sup¬ 
posedly higher beds in New Zealand, is in Australia confined to the beds 
classed as Jurassic. The long-standing question concerning the occurrence 
of Glossopteris in New Zealand is answered in the negative by Dr. Arber, 
who declares that the dubious form, termed by him Linguifolium Lillieanum, 
is in no way related to Glossopteris , but is the same as the form occurring 
in the Jurassic Walloon beds of Queensland under the name Phyllopteris 
Feistmantelli, and is perhaps represented by a Thinnfeldia in the Victorian 
* The plant-beds at the base of the Kaihiku series are older, but no satisfactory 
material from them was available at the time of Dr. Arber 1 s examination.—E d. 
