FOSSILS IN NEW ZEALAND.

Waipawa Mail, Volume I, Issue 21, 23 November 1878, Page 2

FOSSILS IN NEW ZEALAND.

By Augustus Fitzherbert Stiggins, Esq. New Zealand is celebrated for the nuinof fossils that are discovered in the earth’s crust within that habitable portion of the globe’s surface. Univalves, bivalves, Crustacea, saurians, and all the higher I orders of the mighty deep, as well as the mastodon and other leviathians of the earth, are to be found entombed in its rugged mountains, or buried deep down in the bosom of its fertile valleys. Ordinary oysters and cockles form ranges of hills covered only by a thin coating of soil accumulated by the decomposition of vegetable matter in bygone ages. Yes when some of these hills are broken into for the purpose of obtaining the limestone of which they are composed, myriads of shells are exposed to view as each piece of stone is broken from the living rock, and some of the said shells are apparently as fresh as though they had only left their native element yesterday. To the studious and paiient observer, the is filled with wonder and admiration. °With wonder at the mighty unheavals taht have at some remote period of our planet’s existence played such a wonderfully powerful effect in lifting those creatures of the briny deep to the elevated positions where they now repose. The might, the power, the force to produce such an eff ct is incalculable, and may well overpower the most profound thinker and scientist as he gazes upon these mountains of living organisms of departed ages. But if he is overpowered in contemplating the wonderful causes that produce sucli an extraordinary effect, how much more does he feel his own degree of littleness when contemplating how beautifully they have been preserved ; like ferns in the pages of a book, so are these fossils preserved in the rocks, which truly are the book of Nature, always open to those who will only take the trouble of reading her pages for themselves, and learn therefrom the wondrous events that have taken place on this sublunary sphere far far back in the dark deep shadows of the unfathomable depths of time. Having said this much upon the rocks and their inhabitants, I would now draw your attention to a type or types of living fossil. I am aware that this will appear paradoxical, and to many not only strange,

but astounding' still, it is nevertheless true, and the most singular part is that they are to be found from one extremity of New Zealand to the other. I will do my best to illustrate my meaning. Now, among merchants, you will find many whose ledger is their Bible, their prosperity their religion, and their money their God. Upon any other topic they are unconscious, and incapable of thinking or acting. In fact, they sink into a fossiliferous state, with their hearts deadened to the impulses of humanity, and only know that they are in existence by the potent power of the three idols I have before alluded to. Again, among men following pastoral pursuits you will find some who can talk nothing but. sheep, cattle, horse, and such is the trinity they adore, and such they swear by. Ask them for a new idea beyond the sacred precincts of their idols, aud they at onCe show that they are but animated fossils, limited to understand the beauties of Nature with ita glorious surrounding to the value of a mob of horses, cattle, or sheep. Ask them to propound a theory to ameliorate the sufferings of their fellow creatures, and they shrink within themselves, button their breeches pockets, close the portals of their hearts, and at once show they are equally fossilised with the m erchant and the shells that lie quiescent within rocks. And I will yet pourtray another type of fossil, that is the agriculturist, who with paternal eyes’ gazes with rapture upon his broad acres, his crops, and his farming implements, and such is the adoration of his heart, and such doth his soul worship. Outside of these three he is a pefect nonentity. He cares not for the pleasure or trouble of the outside world. He bothers himself neither with the vices or virtues of those by whom he is surrounded. The orphan nor the widow know not the charity of his hand, nor the softness of his voice. No, he is wrapt up within himself a living petrifaction, neither assisting his fellow creature nor doing any direct good to any outside the immediate circle of his family, and frequently very little to them. Unfortunately he is a fossil, and passing through the world in a living state of death. I have enumerated three descriptions of fossils, but they are so numerous that they permeate every rank and degree of society, so much so that instead of one lecture, it would require a hundred to describe a tenth part of the living fossils that have taken up their abode in New Zealand. And while being an admirer of Nature in all her grund and magnificent works, and while anxious and desirous of becoming acquainted with the natural fossils of the rocks, I do trust that these artificial representations wearing the shape of humanity, but who are nevertheless fossils, may not be so gloriously preserved for future admiration of unborn generations as the humble shell in its natural but rockbound book.