18 ORIGIN OF LIFE IN AMERICA 



No doubt this discovery provides an argument for the op- 

 ponents of the land bridge theory, yet we know how adaptive 

 certain species are to a change of conditions, and how long 

 they can maintain themselves under adverse circumstances. 

 I am not, therefore, disposed to attach too much importance 

 to Dr. Appell^f's discovery. In any case, the land bridge theory 

 is not dependent on the evidence alluded to. 



Dr. Spethmann,* on the other hand, reiterates what we 

 already know, that from a purely geological standpoint there 

 are no positive proofs in favour of a former land bridge 

 between Europe and Greenland. 



These seem to be the principal arguments that have been 

 advanced in opposition to the land bridge theory, and they 

 are, in my opinion, not very formidable ones. 



The question of the supposed survival of plants through 

 the Ice Age in Greenland is closely connected with that of 

 the land bridge alluded to. Whether any plants survived, and 

 what proportion of those previously existing, largely depends 

 on the nature of the Ice Age or Glacial Epoch and on the 

 former extension of the glaciers in Greenland. Professor 

 James Geikie f maintains that it is a fair assumption that 

 the ice of Greenland in Glacial times completely buried the 

 land and, perhaps, protruded beyond it. It has recently been 

 very clearly demonstrated, however, by the leader of the 

 German Greenland Expedition, Dr. E. von Drygalski,J that 

 the strip of land now free from ice on the west coast of Green- 

 land has never been entirely invaded by glaciers. No doubt 

 it can be proved, he remarks, that the ice in past times had 

 a greater extension. All the same, glaciers never reached the 

 cliffs and rock pinnacles which abound on all parts of the 

 coast land of Greenland. 



No special reason can be adduced, therefore, why the pre- 

 sent flora of Greenland should not have survived the Ice Age 

 in that country, particularly as we have some grounds for the 

 belief that the land in parts of the Arctic Regions then stood 

 higher than it does now, and that consequently more land was 



* Spethmann, H., " Aufbau d. Insel Island," p. 8. 



t Geikie, J., " The Great Ice Age," p. 736. 



| Drygalski, E. von, " Gronland Expedition," Vol. I., p. 385, 



