274 
ORIGIN OF LIFE IN AMERICA 
not l)e surprising that I am a strong adherent of the theory- 
just stated, that a land bridge existed right across the Atlantic 
between the Mediterranean and the Antillean regions, and 
that the European element of the fauna made use of it in 
passing to America (Fig. 14). This land connection, or 
course, was quite independent of the one I described (p. 13) 
as having once joined Labrador and Scotland hy way of 
Greenland. The latter may possibly have come into existence 
when the other had already crumbled away. At any rate, the 
two are quite distinct as to age and position. 
Before I had an opportunity of making this more thorough 
study of the North American fauna, I was under the impres¬ 
sion that the “ Southern Atlantis,” as we may call this land 
connection, joined Africa with South America, and that there 
was no other land bridge across the mid-Atlantic.* I am still 
an advocate, as I shall explain more fully later on, of what 
Dr. von Ihering calls “ Archhelenis,” the hypothetical con¬ 
tinent of the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean. But I 
maintain that a more northerly land bridge likewise existed, 
and that the two were completely separated by a wide ocean. 
The disciples of Dr. Wallace will exclaim, “ What about the 
permanence of ocean basins, a theory which receives such 
weighty support from some of the most eminent geologists 
of the day ? ” This question of the permanence of ocean 
basins, and we may say of continental areas too, really lies at 
the root of most of our inquiries into the past changes of the 
earth and its animal inhabitants. The internal characters 
of the rocks we see around us, remarks Sir Archibald Geikie,f 
point unmistakably to deposition in comparatively shallow 
water. “Their abundant intercalations of fine and coarse 
material, their constant variety of mineral composition, their 
sun-cracks, ripple-marks, rain-pittings and worm-tracks, 
their numerous unconformabilities and traces of terrestrial 
surfaces, together with the prevalent facies of their organic 
contents, combine to demonstrate that the main mass of the 
sedimentary rocks of the earth’s crust was accumulated close 
to land, and that no trace of really abysmal deposits is to be 
found among them.” From these considerations, says Sir 
* Scharff, B. F., “Atlantis Problem,” p. 279. 
t Geikie, A., “Text Book of Geology,” p. 911. 
