ANCIENT PACIFIC LAND BELT 419 



western North America became disconnected. Yet the eastern 

 shores of the great peninsula, which long afterwards stretched 

 southward from the west coast of California, joined the con- 

 tinent of South America further north, probably in Ecuador 

 and Peru (Fig. 16). Animals and plants arriving from the 

 north, like the mastodon above alluded to, no longer reached 

 Chile directly, though still able to enter South America by 

 this second route, which added many new forms to the fauna 

 of the continent. 



This is all I have to say on the origin of the faunistic and 

 floristic relationships between southern South America and 

 North America as well as Europe. I have also referred 

 above to a kinship existing between the Santa Cruz fauna of 

 Argentina and the living fauna of Australia. This is a pro- 

 blem of even greater interest than that just discussed. At 

 any rate, the testimony in its favour has converted many of 

 those who had hitherto looked upon great changes in the 

 disposition of continents and ocean basins during the Tertiary 

 Era as altogether visionary speculations. Some, like Professor 

 Osborn,* who contends that the Atlantis hypothesis is highly 

 improbable, regard the hypothetical reconstruction of a great 

 southern continent (Fig. 21) uniting South America with 

 Australia as one of the greatest triumphs of recent biological 

 investigation. The theory of the former land connection be- 

 tween southern South America and New Zealand or Australia 

 has been discussed from almost every point of view, so that we 

 possess at present quite an extensive literature on the subject. 

 A few years ago Dr. Ortmann summarised the more important 

 papers dealing with this subject, but many other essays have 

 since been published throwing further light on this fascina- 

 ting problem. The great majority of those who have endea- 

 voured to account for the undoubted faunistic or floristic affi- 

 nities of southern South America and the Australian region 

 have come to the conclusion that it is due to the existence of a 

 former antarctic continent. A few, however, argue that there 

 was a more direct land connection between the two areas 

 across the southern Pacific, while some believe that the resem- 

 blance in the fauna and flora of the countries referred to has 



* Osborn, H. F., " Age of Mammals," p. 75. 



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