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 Hutton,* 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, “ Relations between New Zealand and South 
America,” p. 444. 
