1897]: NOTES AND COMMENTS 221 



where all real knowledge is wanting, but which can never be scien- 

 tifically verified. Attentive perusal of Sir John Evans' address 

 itself suffices to show that archaeology is in no sense a science, but 

 rather a recondite and remote branch of historical speculation." 



This extract is long, but it is worth reprinting, since it is a sad 

 reminder of how slowly knowledge of the elementary facts of science 

 really spreads. After this, it is perhaps unnecessary to consider 

 any of The Times later criticisms of the President's address or of 

 his proposed Imperial Ethnographic Bureau. It was, however, 

 unfortunate that Sir John Evans should have prejudiced his pro- 

 posal by suggesting that the work might be undertaken by the 

 Imperial Institute. 



The Mammals of the Lost Antarctic Continent 



As soon as space permits, we hope to publish some further interest- 

 ing contributions to our knowledge of primaeval man and the ques- 

 tion of his antiquity. This month we go a little further back in 

 the history of the mammalia, and print a translation of an import- 

 ant address to the New University of La Plata by Dr Elorentino 

 Ameghino, which is liable to be overlooked in its separate form in 

 the original Spanish. We do not pretend to endorse his conclusions; 

 we look upon some of them, indeed, as visionary speculations. But 

 during the past ten years the brothers Ameghino have done more 

 than anyone else — not even excepting the eminent Director of the 

 Museum La Plata (Dr F. P. Moreno) — to elucidate the geology and 

 the mammalian fossils ; and Dr Florentino Ameghino, who is an 

 accomplished zoologist and comparative anatomist, commands a re- 

 spectful hearing, if only on account of the remarkable contributions 

 he has made to our knowledge of the Tertiary mammals and birds. 

 We have already referred to the progress of his researches on several 

 occasions in Natural Science. 



It is well known that, according to our present information, the 

 chief types of the higher mammals all suddenly appear both in 

 Europe and North America at the dawn of the Tertiary period. 

 We are acquainted with old land surfaces of the late Secondary 

 period in both countries, but hitherto we have not found a trace of 

 the ancestors of the higher Tertiary mammals on any of them. Dr 

 Ameghino now claims to have discovered these long-lost ancestors of 

 the Cretaceous period in Patagonia. He believes in the theory of 

 an Antarctic Continent, which split up at the beginning of the 

 Tertiary period into South America, New Zealand, Australia, South 

 Africa, and less important islands. Here he considers that the 

 Mesozoic ancestors of the mammals were evolved. He believes that 

 they first wandered into the Euro-Asiatic Continent at the end of 



