18 
ORIGIN OF LIFE IN AMERICA 
No doubt this discovery provides an argument for the op¬ 
ponents of the land bridge theory, yet we know how adaptive 
certain species are to a change of conditions, and how long 
they can maintain themselves under adverse circumstances. 
I am not, therefore, disposed to attach too much importance 
to Dr. Appell^f’s discovery. In any case, the land bridge theory 
is not dependent on the evidence alluded to. 
Dr. Spethmann,* on the other hand, reiterates what we 
already know, that from a purely geological standpoint there 
are no positive proofs in favour of a former land bridge 
between Europe and Greenland. 
These seem to be the principal arguments that have been 
advanced in opposition to the land bridge theory, and they 
are, in my opinion, not very formidable ones. 
The question of the supposed survival of plants through 
the Ice Age in Greenland is closely connected with that of 
the land bridge alluded to. Whether any plants survived, and 
what proportion of those previously existing, largely depends 
on the nature of the Ice Age or Glacial Epoch and on the 
former extension of the glaciers in Greenland. Professor 
James Geikie f maintains that it is a fair assumption that 
the ice of Greenland in Glacial times completely buried the 
land and, perhaps, protruded beyond it. It has recently been 
very clearly demonstrated, however, by the leader of the 
German Greenland Expedition, Dr. E. von Drygalski,J that 
the strip of land now free from ice on the west coast of Green¬ 
land has never been entirely invaded by glaciers. No doubt 
it can be proved, he remarks, that the ice in past times had 
a greater extension. All the same, glaciers never reached the 
cliffs and rock pinnacles which abound on all parts of the 
coast land of Greenland. 
No special reason can be adduced, therefore, why the pre¬ 
sent flora of Greenland should not have survived the Ice Age 
in that country, particularly as we have some grounds for the 
belief that the land in parts of the Arctic Regions then stood 
higher than it does now, and that consequently more land was 
* Spethmann, H., “ Aufbau d. Inset Island,” p. 8. 
f Geikie, J., “ The Great Ice Age,” p. 736. 
f Drygalski, E. yon, “ Gropland Expedition,” Yol. I., p, 385, 
