322 ORIGIN OF LIFE IN AMERICA 



the organisms that form coral reefs are unable to live at a 

 greater depth than one hundred and fifty feet, it is manifest 

 that the floor of the ocean must have subsided very slowly 

 and continuously, thus enabling the reef-building corals to 

 raise their structures to the requisite depth of water. The 

 verdict of Funafuti is thus clearly and unmistakably in favour 

 of Darwin's theory of subsidence. The fact that a slight local 

 elevation seems to be taking place in some parts in no way 

 detracts from the truth which has been so firmly established. 



It would lead me too far from my main object to allude to 

 the numerous papers that have been written on the Pacific 

 Continent controversy. After Gould and Murray it was 

 Captain Button,* I think, who again revived the theory, which 

 he later on discussed in his presidential address to the Philo- 

 sophical Institute of Canterbury in New Zealand. His idea 

 was that New Zealand, eastern Australia and India formed one 

 biological region in early Mesozoic times. In Lower Cre- 

 taceous times a large Pacific Continent extended from New 

 Guinea to Chile, and from the latter a long lobe of land 

 stretched southward to New Zealand. This Pacific Continent, 

 in his opinion, supported plants, insects, snails, frogs, some 

 lizards, perhaps snakes and a few birds, but no mammals. 

 Later on, during the Cretaceous Period, New Zealand became 

 separated, while the Pacific Continent broke up. 



More recently Dr. von Iheringf alluded to a Pacific Con- 

 tinent which he believes to have gradually subsided during 

 the Mesozoic Era, but without going into further details as 

 to its nature and size. I may mention that the supposed 

 antarctic land connection between Patagonia and New Zea- 

 land is a subject which I am not dealing with at present. 

 Dr. Pilsbry assailed the problem entirely from the point of 

 view of the molluscan distribution. He points out that many 

 genera of land-snails reach back to the Oligocene Period 

 unchanged save in specific characters, and that the modern 

 family groups of these snails undoubtedly diverge far back 

 in Mesozoic time. Now it is a most significant fact that the 

 Pacific islands are almost entirely tenanted by the most primi- 



* Hutton, F. W., " Origin of Fauna and Flora of New Zealand." 

 t Ihering, H. von, "Eelations between New Zealand and South 

 America," p. 444. 



