334 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



course in lS94-'95, attaining off Victoria Land, with clear water 

 ahead of them, latitude 74 south, confirm in almost every detail 

 the observations of their predecessor, adding some additional 

 facts regarding the large glaciers which descend from the heights 

 of the Sabine Mountains. They were the first to set foot on the 

 mainland (or main island) of Antarctica, and to them science also 

 owes the first discovery within this realm of a rock-covering 

 vegetation (lichens ? on Possession Island and Cape Adare). 



In its relation to other continents there is reason to believe 

 that Antarctica, whether as a continent or in fragmented parts, 

 had a definite connection with one or more of the land masses 

 lying to the north, and the suspicion can hardly be avoided that 

 such connection was, if with nothing else, with at least New Zea- 

 land (and through it with Australia) and Patagonia. In the frag- 

 mented parts of Graham Land archipelago and the outlying South 

 Orkney and South Georgian Islands, we seem to have the bond of 

 connection with the South American main ; or, more specifically, 

 a line of curvature of the great Andean chain, which, in its 

 broken parts, can still be traced far beyond its present continental 

 termination. If this concept is a true one, it places before us a 

 parallel to the Andean curvature in the northern part of the 

 South American continent, where the mountain system is deflect- 

 ed off into the broken mass of the Lesser Antilles ; to the Aleu- 

 tian flexure of the Cordilleran system of North America ; and to 

 the " Apennine- Atlas " and " Carpathian-Balkan^' flexures of the 

 Alpine mountains, the nature of which has been so clearly stated 

 by Suess. In fact, it is hardly possible that any very extensive 

 meridional or latitudinal mountain chain could have been forced 

 up through contractional force without some such deflection 

 heing represented in one or more parts of its course ; and where 

 these deflections are found they are almost certain to be areas of 

 breakage. The disruption of the Andean system is still (or has 

 until recently been) taking place, as is evidenced in a portion of 

 the Chilian archipelago. 



When we look for the evidence of connection such as has been 

 indicated, we find it in the fossils of Cape Seymour, already re- 

 ferred to, in a part of the living fauna of the continents of the 

 southern hemisphere, and in the vestiges of a past life which 

 these continents reveal. Thus, among land animals whose history 

 favors this view, are the South American ostriches, whose close 

 and only immediate allies are the ostriches and other large ratite 

 birds of the African and Australian regions. The union of these 

 birds in the southern continents, whatever may have been the 

 exact place of their origination, gives evidence of migration, and 

 this migration in the case of non- flying birds could only have 

 taken place along united land areas. It may be assumed, and has 



