. The geography of New Zealand. Historical, physical, political, and commercial . oflarge size forms the ice-bound land extending roundthe South Pole, though its projecting capes nowherereach beyond the limits of eternal snow and ice. Itpreviously extended further north, and at the sametime New Zealand and Australia stretching south-wards received from it many of its plants andanimals, which soon established themselves firmlyon the more northern lands. The most important immigrants that reached NewZealand were fish, both fresh water and molluscs, too, are clearly of Antarctic deriv
. The geography of New Zealand. Historical, physical, political, and commercial . oflarge size forms the ice-bound land extending roundthe South Pole, though its projecting capes nowherereach beyond the limits of eternal snow and ice. Itpreviously extended further north, and at the sametime New Zealand and Australia stretching south-wards received from it many of its plants andanimals, which soon established themselves firmlyon the more northern lands. The most important immigrants that reached NewZealand were fish, both fresh water and molluscs, too, are clearly of Antarctic deriva-tion. The majority of New Zealand earthworms 278 GEOGRAPHY OP NEW ZEALAND prove that at one time an actual land connectionexisted between New Zealand and Antarctica. The precise time at which this connection betweenthe two lands existed is still a matter not definitelysettled. A close comparison of the fish and earth-worms of the two districts shows that the differencesare so great that they can be accounted for only on |the supposition that the land connection occurred ati. Tuatara. the close of the Mesozoic age. On the other hand,Captain Huttou, basing his opinion on the time ofappearance of marine mollusca as fossils in thegeological strata of New Zealand and on the closeresemblance of the Antarctic plants in the NewZealand flora with those of other Antarctic lands,concludes that New Zealand was separated only bya shallow and narrow sea from Antarctica in theOligocene period. But there are many reasons forbelieving that the New Zealand extension took place FLORA AND FAUNA OF NEW ZEALAND 279 far more recently. If the suggestion that has beenmade be afterwards proved, that the New ZealandMoas are more closely related to the Rheas of SouthAmerica than to the Emu and the Cassowary, itwould seem that an actual land connection, and notmerely a shallow water one, existed at that time,which was probably the Pleistocene Period. It is at any rate certain that New Zealand wasseparate
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